[IsraelTimes] Police arrest a man for allegedly insulting a public worker following an anti-government protest on Tel Aviv’s Habima Square, with central Tel Aviv police chief Avi Ofer accusing the man of calling him a “zero.”Officers drag the man away to a police car and drive away as fellow anti-government activists protest that the incident does not constitute grounds for arrest.
The protest is organized by the Movement for Quality Government, which has petitioned the High Court against the government’s efforts to weaken the judiciary, codify the Haredi exemption from military service and avoid forming a state commission of inquiry into the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.
The protest attracts hundreds of people, with a large group marching over from the memorial outside City Hall where Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was shot dead in 1995.
Beside the stage, a smaller group of left-wing protesters stand in silence, holding signs that call to “stop the genocide” in Gaza and “release Palestinian hostages” from prison in Israel.
When a speaker who follows Elgarat repeats the bereaved brother’s call for a state commission of inquiry, a woman from the left-wing group starts calling through a megaphone for a state probe of Israel’s “torture camps” for Palestinian inmates.
People standing nearby, from the main bloc of protesters — including a woman in a Democrats shirt — try to silence the left-wing protester, telling her she is intruding on the main demonstration. A shouting match ensues, and fades away as the d
emonstration disperses.
In Jerusalem, hundreds of people participate in an anti-government demonstration. Police use a water cannon to disperse protesters in the road.