Thousands of Israel gathered in Tel Aviv to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government decision, reject the head of Singh Bet’s domestic intelligence reporting agency and protest the decision to resume fighting in Gaza.
Netanyahu said this week that he has been leading Singh Bett since 2021 and intends to fire him on April 10th, losing confidence in Lonen Barr, who urged three days of protest.
On Saturday, Israeli leaders said the country remains democratic despite the security chief’s firing.
At Havima Square in Tel Aviv, protesters waving blue and white Israeli flags and sought a deal to watch the remaining Israeli prisoners take place in Gaza.
“Israel’s most dangerous enemy is Benjamin Netanyahu,” 63-year-old protester Moshe Hahaloney told Reuters.
“Benjamin Netanyahu hasn’t cared about the country, and hasn’t cared about its citizens for 20 years.”
Netanyahu dismissed the accusations that the decision was politically motivated, but his critics accused him of undermining the institutions that underpin Israel’s democracy by calling for the removal of bars.
Israel’s Supreme Court issued an injunction on Friday, temporarily frozen terminations.
Netanyahu and Barr were in Loggerheads for several months on October 7, 2023 amid tensions over a bribery investigation focused on the prime minister’s office and accusations that failed to prevent an attack on southern Israel.
In a letter, Burr said his expulsion was motivated by his desire to stop the “pursuit of truth” about the events that took place until October 7th.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid called for a general strike on Saturday if Netanyahu refused to pay attention to the termination of the Supreme Court’s decision-free bar.
“If the government on October 7 decides not to comply with the court’s decision, that day will be the outlaw government,” Rapid told Tel Aviv protesters.
“If this happens, the entire country has to be shut down,” he said. “The system that should not be shut down is a security system,” he emphasized.
Some Israelis have denounced what they see as an autocratic change by Netanyahu, who has convened the Cabinet on Sunday to launch a perpetrator procedure against Attorney General Galli Baharav Miara, another critic of the Prime Minister.
Baharav Miara, who also serves as the government’s legal counsel, warned Netanyahu that a Supreme Court decision would temporarily “ban” him from appointing a new Singh Bet chief.
Protests against the Attorney General’s firing are planned on Sunday outside the Israeli Parliament’s Knesset and near the private residence of the prime minister in West Jerusalem.
At the rally on Saturday, protesters continued to read the placards, saying, “There’s no more bloodshed,” “How much blood should we shed?” and “Stop the war now!” to ensure that 59 prisoners are still held in the Gaza Strip.
Israel returned to the war in Gaza Tuesday, shattering a ceasefire in which Hamas saw exchanges of prisoners being held in Israeli prisons, bringing a rest to the abused, besieged enclaves.
Since the start of the war, there have been regular protests by supporters of families and prisoners of war seized by Hamas during the attack on October 7th.
“We’re a year and a half after a very hard fight in Gaza. Hamas is still in power,” 44-year-old protester Elles Berman told Reuters. “With tens of thousands of fighter jets still there, the Israeli government has actually failed to achieve its goals from the war.”
With the Israeli war in Gaza resumed, the fate of prisoners, who are believed to be still alive, remains unknown, and protesters said they could see them being killed by prisoners or Israeli artillery fire.
Netanyahu’s foreign policy adviser Ophiel Faulk said military pressure had led Hamas to accept the first ceasefire in November 2023, with around 80 prisoners being returned. He argued that this was also the surest way to force the release of the remaining prisoners.
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