Window at Supreme Court shattered by airsoft gun or slingshot, judiciary says

The judiciary announced on Saturday evening that a window in the Supreme Court building in Jerusalem was shattered during a right-wing protest on Thursday evening, either by an airsoft gun or a slingshot.

Police opened an investigation into the shattered floor-to-ceiling window after it was noticed on Friday morning, on the suspicion that a bullet had been fired at it, given that the cracks fanned out from a small hole in the top portion of the glass.

The previous night, some 10,000 people gathered outside the Supreme Court for a right-wing demonstration attended by a handful of government ministers, including Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who, during his speech, accused the country’s top court of “tyranny.”

The Supreme Court said on Saturday night that investigators were working to track down suspects in the incident.

“This is an unusual, grave, and unprecedented incident,” it said. “The proximity to the demonstration held at the same time and the messages voiced during it against the Supreme Court are troubling.”

If the window was shattered intentionally, the judiciary said, then “the matter must be treated with the necessary gravity, and those responsible must be brought to justice.”

“Harming the Supreme Court…crosses a red line and harms the basic values of Israeli democracy,” it added.

Tensions between the government and the Supreme Court have been rising again in recent months as the government seeks to relaunch its controversial judicial overhaul legislation, spearheaded by Levin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud.

The legislation, which sparked mass protests across Israel for much of 2023, was put on the back burner following the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught and the start of the war in Gaza, but has made a gradual return to the forefront.

As part of his protest against the courts, Levin spent 16 months refusing the hold a vote for a new chief justice after former Supreme Court president Esther Hayut retired in October 2023.

The court, acting in its capacity as the High Court of Justice, eventually ordered him to allow the vote to proceed, and the Judicial Selection Committee elected Justice Isaac Amit as the head of the top court.

Levin has refused to recognize Amit’s authority and insists that he will not work with him on essential business of the judiciary.

He repeated those sentiments on Saturday night, shortly before the judiciary announced that a window at the Supreme Court had been shot at during the protest.

“Justice Amit is not the president of the Supreme Court, I do not recognize him and will not recognize him because he was elected through an invalid and illegal process,” he told the Kan public broadcaster.

He told the news outlet that he condemned “in the strongest terms” the window being shattered during Thursday’s protest, but appeared to connect the incident to his belief that right-wing protesters and activists are treated more harshly than their left-wing counterparts.

“The terrible selective enforcement that is happening in all matters relating to incitement and harming elected officials will ultimately lead to large disasters,” he told Kan. “There is no greater danger than a situation in which people feel that there is no justice.”

Netanyahu, for his part, also appeared to allude to the incident without directly referring to it, choosing to condemn violence “of any kind.”

He called for law enforcement and civil leaders to “condemn and act decisively against all manifestations of violence and incitement — without exception.”

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid placed blame for the incident squarely on the shoulders of Netanyahu’s government.

“It was the government that organized the rally,” he pointed out. “The incident is the direct result of its incitement. I already warned over a month ago: If the prime minister does not stop this, it will end in political murder.”

The incident was also condemned by President Isaac Herzog, who defended the Supreme Court as “one of the pillars of Israeli democracy.”

“Violence, incitement, and vandalism are completely unacceptable and must be firmly eradicated.”