Hundreds of Israeli protesters gathered in Tel Aviv and other cities on Saturday to protest the war in the Middle East, in unauthorised demonstrations that security forces sought to disperse.
Weekly protests against the war launched by Israel and the United States against Iran on February 28 have been taking place in Tel Aviv and other major cities. Initially drawing only a few dozen participants, numbers now appear to be rising, though far from the tens of thousands who filled Tel Aviv’s streets last year to protest the war in Gaza.
Former parliamentarians and prominent left-wing organisations joined Saturday’s rallies, including Standing Together, Peace Now and Women Wage Peace. AFP footage showed law enforcement officers removing demonstrators in Tel Aviv. Similar scenes were filmed by activists in the northern city of Haifa.
Under wartime security guidelines, gatherings of more than 50 people are prohibited in Israel, as the country faces daily barrages of missiles and rockets from Iran and Lebanon. A spokesperson for one of the organising groups told AFP that the protests had not been authorised.
In Tel Aviv, AFP journalists reported that security forces pushed back some demonstrators forcefully, knocking several to the ground — at times on top of one another — while at least one protester was held in a chokehold. According to an AFP journalist, at least four people were detained.
The Israeli police said the “illegal demonstration” in Tel Aviv was dispersed after a Home Front Command representative clarified that such a gathering was prohibited under emergency regulations. Police said 13 people were arrested in the city. Another five were detained in Haifa, where “rioters began blocking the road and did not comply with the officers’ instructions,” police said.
Organisers from the Jewish-Arab activist group Standing Together said in a statement that police had been “instructed to carry out arrests and silence dissent,” adding that “the government fears the expansion of the protest movement.”
Public support for the war against Iran remains high in Israel. A poll published Friday by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 78 per cent of Jewish Israelis back the war – compared to just 19 per cent among the Arab Israeli minority. However, the share of those opposed has grown from 4 per cent in early March to 11.5 per cent now, the institute found.