Police ban photos of hostages and Gaza children at anti-war protest, then backtrack
In unusual letter to organizers, officials briefly try to condition approval for rally this Thursday on absence of ‘incendiary’ slogans and imagery, but soon rescind demand
Police briefly sought to forbid anti-war protesters from displaying “hostages signs” or “pictures of children or babies from Gaza” as a condition for the approval of a demonstration scheduled for Thursday in Tel Aviv, but then backtracked on their demands.
In a letter sent on Sunday to organizers and first obtained by Haaretz, police also tried to preemptively prohibit demonstrators from waving signs with the words “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” on them.
After Haaretz reached out to law enforcement about the letter, police stated that they had sent organizers updated instructions.
Protest organizer Alon-Lee Green, co-director of the joint Jewish-Arab “Standing Together” movement, told The Times of Israel that it seemed police had backtracked on their initial demands by Sunday evening.
“We’ll take them to the High Court if they persist, and we’ll win,” he added.
Protest organizers told Haaretz earlier that the initial letter was an attempt to censor messages in protest of the war and the government, and that “police’s actions show that it is a political organization.”
“Ever since Netanyahu decided to collapse the ceasefire deal in order to allow [far-right Otzma Yehudit party leader Itamar] Ben Gvir to return to the coalition, the release of the hostages held captive by Hamas has been halted, and many Palestinian children have died,” the group continued.
In May of last year, while responding to a petition from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel regarding the confiscation of signs deemed “incendiary” at protests, police said officers on the ground are “not instructed to limit the content of the protest” nor limit the content of signs.
But in practice, officers regularly seize what they deem provocative signs at anti-war protests, and often carry out widespread arrests.
Earlier this month, police detained 23 protesters at a small anti-war demonstration in Haifa minutes after it started, tearing away signs that read “Stop bombing aid convoys” and “Stop the genocide.”
حيفا: 4 معتقلين على الأقل إثر قمع الشرطة وقفة منددة بالحرب على غزة
التفاصيل: https://t.co/s0pXjcRyPg pic.twitter.com/PoXMw4CkHd
— موقع عرب 48 (@arab48website) April 10, 2025
“The police dispersed the protest not even a minute after it started,” a demonstrator who wished to remain anonymous told The Times of Israel afterward.
Officers later sought to extend the detention of three protesters but their request was rejected by the Haifa Magistrate’s Court.
A few days prior to the protest in Haifa, police detained seven demonstrators in Jerusalem who had been partaking in a similar display, confiscating their placards. They were later released as well.
The Times of Israel Community.