WATCH: Far-right Israelis celebrate Gaza kids’ deaths
In video from Tel Aviv demonstration, crowd can be seen chanting, ‘There is no school tomorrow; there are no children left in Gaza’
Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
Video has emerged of far-right Israeli protesters celebrating the death of children in Gaza during a counter-demonstration to an anti-war rally in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square over the weekend.
“There is no school tomorrow; there are no children left in Gaza,” the men can be seen chanting as part of a roughly formed song that also included the stanzas “I hate all the Arabs” and “Gaza is a cemetery.”
The mob also called for Israeli Arabs to be stripped of their citizenship.
The Saturday night gathering was meant to counter a much larger left-wing demonstration in favor of ending the conflict in Gaza and resuming peace talks. Several thousand left-wing activists had gathered in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square, where they were calling for an end to bloodshed in the Gaza Strip and a return to negotiations with the Palestinians
Hundreds of far-right activists participated in the counter-rally at the scene, with police fanned out to prevent altercations between the two sides.
Some people can be seen in the video urging the demonstrators to stop singing, but they refuse to listen.
The anti-Arab protesters also voiced threats against Arab MKs Ahmad Tibi and Hanin Zoabi, both of whom have been voicing staunchly pro-Palestinian points of view of late.
“Ahmad Tibi, I want you to know, the next child that gets hit, is yours,” the crowd can be seen chanting. “I hate Tibi the terrorist.”
Earlier this week, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein rejected calls for a criminal investigation into Zoabi for allegedly inciting violence when she said in June that the kidnappers of three Israeli teens in the West Bank (later, the teens’ bodies would be found in a field) were not terrorists. On Tuesday she was suspended from Knesset deliberations for six months.
“This is the Jewish state; I hate you Hanin Zoabi,” the crowd chanted.
The demonstrations on Saturday were cut short when Hamas unilaterally ended a humanitarian truce with Israel and resumed rocket fire from Gaza.
Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8 to stem rocket fire from the Gaza Strip at its towns and cities as well as to destroy a network of tunnels dug under the border that Palestinian fighters have used to stage attacks inside Israel. Several Israeli soldiers have been killed in by terrorist ambushes launched from the tunnels.
Palestinian sources report that over 1,100 Gazans have been killed during the military offensive. Israel says the figures include hundreds of armed combatants.
As of Tuesday morning, Israel had lost 53 soldiers in the fighting along with two Israeli civilians, and a Thai agricultural worker.
Lazar Berman contributed to this report.