The police used water cannons, tear gas, and arrested dozens of peaceful protesters who took to the streets for the “National Strike Day.” The prime minister and the head of national security call for “zero tolerance” with the “anarchists” in the square. Tension in the reform committee where the bill that limits the powers of the Supreme Court is approved, which will now go to the Knesset.
Jerusalem () – Police attacks, tear gas and arrests of protesters in the streets of Tel Aviv against the (controversial) justice reform promoted by the government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. These are tense times that are lived today in Israel, where the authorities decided to use a heavy hand and repress a demonstration that, although it blocked streets and filled squares, had maintained peaceful connotations. Several demonstrators were injured, while the agents used water cannons to disperse the gathering, which the prime minister and the head of National Security described as “lawlessness”.
There were also cuts and blockades of streets and railways in Jerusalem and on the highway that connects the two main centers of the country.
The security forces responded with extreme harshness to the “National Strike Day” called for today, a street protest that included the blockade of streets, student strikes and the closure of various activities. An initiative promoted while in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, the deputies voted (and approved) some measures that are part of the Justice reform, against which attacks and harsh criticism continue to come, including the danger that the country ” become a dictatorship. The former state attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit, renewed the accusations of him speaking of a “coup d’état by the regime.”
At this time, the preliminary study of another issue that is a source of confrontation and tension is also in the hands of Parliament. This is the rule presented by the minister of “Jewish Power” Itamar Ben-Gvir, who intends to legalize the death penalty for those accused of terrorism, a law that would end up being used above all against Palestinians. In addition, recently Ben-Gvir himself, commenting on the street protests after a silence of hours, including on the events in Huwara, called for “zero tolerance” with the “anarchists” (read, the peaceful protesters who took to the streets today ), which so far has led to the arrest of at least 26 people.
A line seconded by Netanyahu himself, who in the last few hours issued a statement condemning the climate of “anarchy” that characterized the anti-government protests, giving “full support” to his minister’s “zero tolerance” policy. And its effects were felt in the streets: the police made dozens of arrests and used water cannons to disperse the crowd. In a video broadcast on the networks, a group of agents immobilizes a protester on the ground and a crouching policeman plunges his knee into his neck, with the obvious danger of suffocating him. Brotehrs in Arms, a group made up of reservists critical of the government, denounced the arrest of two former soldiers from the elite Sayeret Matkal combat unit. “His arrest,” the group denounced in a note, “symbolizes exactly what is happening: Sayeret Matkal is in custody and Netanyahu is a prisoner of Ben-Gvir.”
Meanwhile, the Knesset’s parliamentary commission for Constitutional Reforms approved the government project that limits the ability of the Supreme Court to challenge the Executive’s laws that it considers unconstitutional. It was a vote characterized by great tension and boycotted by the opposition, with some deputies expelled from the chamber. The law now goes to the Knesset, which in plenary session must approve it on first reading. The opposition’s target is the president of the commission, Simcha Rothman, who would have restricted the right to intervene during the debate. “This is a regime coup!” Yisrael Beytenu MP Yulia Malinovsky thundered as she was escorted out of the chamber.
