Protesters in Jerusalem demand deal to free hostages, end ‘Netanyahu’s war’
Democrats party head vows to fight government ‘with all the power at our disposal’; ex-captive’s relative says PM will stand trial for ‘traitorous deeds’
Some one thousand anti-government protesters marched Thursday evening from Jerusalem’s government complex to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence, drawing on the Passover holiday’s celebration of freedom as they demanded a deal to bring home the remaining 59 hostages from Gaza.
One protester’s sign read: “There is no freedom so long as they’re there”; another, alluding to a traditional song from the Passover Seder, read: “59, who knows?”
Police and Border Police officers manned crowd control barricades, keeping protesters from drawing close to the premier’s home. No arrests were reported.
Yair Golan, head of the left-wing The Democrats, could be seen shaking protesters’ hands outside Netanyahu’s home as he moved through the crowd before giving an impromptu speech in which he demanded new elections.
“We have a giant task — to bring hope to the people and citizens of Israel,” said Golan, who was knocked down by police in the same spot last month during a mass protest against the government’s bid to oust Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.
Calling to fight the government with “every power at our disposal,” including strikes and civil disobedience, Golan repeated his offer to leaders of other opposition parties to band together. “We’ll build a unified and coherent alternative to the government,” he said.
Golan and other opposition chiefs accuse Netanyahu of seeking to offload blame for the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, when thousands of terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
A ceasefire reached in January saw Hamas release 33 hostages. The deal’s 42-day first phase expired on March 2 amid Netanyahu’s refusal to negotiate the second. The second phase would have seen Hamas release the 24 hostages believed to be alive, and required a full IDF withdrawal from Gaza — a red line for the premier’s far-right coalition partners. After a 16-day holding pattern, Israel renewed hostilities on March 18.
Speaking outside the premier’s residence on Thursday, Noam Dan, whose relative Ofer Calderon was released during the ceasefire, called for “an end to Netanyahu’s war.” A sole counter protester tried to drown out her speech with loud music from beyond the police-erected barricades.
Dan demanded a permanent end to the war and the return of the hostages, who she said were “destroyed in body and spirit.”
“They’re meeting their fate” in Gaza, she said.
Dan is the cousin of Calderon’s ex-wife Hadas. Ofer and Hadas Calderon’s young children, Erez and Sahar, who were also abducted in the Hamas onslaught, were released in a weeklong November 2023 truce that saw Hamas release 105 women and children. Hadas’s mother Carmela and niece Noya were murdered.
Alluding to the government’s response to reservists opposed to the war, Dan told the crowd outside Netanyahu’s home that the premier and his ministers “call us [draft] refusers.”
“Bibi, you’re a refuser!” she accused, using the premier’s nickname. “You refuse to actualize a signed, life-saving agreement. You refuse to form a state commission of inquiry. You refuse to take responsibility for our greatest disaster.”
“The end of the war will force you to stand trial for your traitorous deeds toward our country, and that’s why you’re violating agreements to save lives,” she said.
Netanyahu has refused to form a state commission of inquiry into failures leading up to the Hamas onslaught, saying such a committee would be biased against him because it is appointed by the judiciary, which the government has sought to weaken.
The Times of Israel Community.