Mass protest and rocket attack
Israel does not rest
04/09/2023, 00:01
Despite President Netanyahu announcing a pause in the legislative process over controversial judicial reform, protests in Israel continue. Hundreds of thousands are said to have taken to the streets in Tel Aviv. Meanwhile, the country is being attacked by rockets from Syria.
Despite the intensified security situation in Israel, protests against the controversial judicial reform of the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continue. As has been the case for weeks, thousands of people in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other cities took to the streets on Saturday evening to protest against the ultra-right coalition’s plans, even though Netanyahu announced a break in the legislative process on March 27.
According to the organizers, 258,000 people took part in the country’s largest demonstration in Tel Aviv; the police initially gave no numbers. As has been the norm for the past 14 weeks, the demonstrators waved Israeli flags and held up banners reading “Save Democracy” and “Netanyahu Leads Us to War.”
The situation in Israel is currently extremely tense. In Tel Aviv on Friday evening, a 36-year-old Italian tourist was killed and seven other tourists injured in an attack on the busy beach promenade. The assassin, who police said was an Arab-Israeli, rammed his car into passers-by before he was shot dead. A few hours earlier, two Israeli-British sisters from the settlement of Efrat in the occupied West Bank had been killed in a gun attack. Her mother was critically injured.
The riots coincide with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Jewish holiday of Passover and the Christian holiday of Easter. Despite urgent appeals for restraint, violence has continued every day since Israeli police officers violently clashed with Palestinians at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa Mosque on Wednesday. In response, Israel faced heavy rocket fire from Lebanon and Gaza, for which Israel blamed Palestinian Hamas. In return, Israel bombed Hamas positions in the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon.
Rocket fire from Syria
Late on Saturday evening, three rockets were fired from Syria at Israel, the Israeli army said. A bullet landed on “open ground” in the south of the Golan Heights annexed by Israel. On the same day, a 20-year-old Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in the north of the West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced.
In response to the wave of violence, Israel massively tightened security measures. From Sunday, four border police reserve battalions are to be deployed in city centers, and the Ministry of Defense also confirmed on Saturday evening that soldiers had been mobilized to support the police. At the same time, it announced that it would tighten travel restrictions to Israel for Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This applies in particular to workers.
Since early January, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of at least 92 Palestinians, 18 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian, according to an AFP count based on official statements from both sides. On the Palestinian side, both combatants and civilians are among the dead. The victims on the Israeli side are mostly civilians, including three members of the Arab minority.