– Ben Netzer – נצר (@netzer_ben) 28 July 2020
Outside the Likud minister’s home, the protesters stood up at a barricade chanting slogans opposed to Ohana, the government and the police as they blew up vuvuzelas. They shouted, “Police, who are you protecting?” Shame, “Who will protect us from the police? “And other slogans opposed to the police.
A neighbor of Ohana told the Times of Israel that the demonstration was larger than the other protests that took up the open-air position of his home in a Tel Aviv skyscraper, smaller than other recent anti-government protests.
Meanwhile, many others demonstrated outdoors at Netanyahu’s official jerusalem apartment, advancing the crusade asking the lifelong leader to resign.
Demonstrators chanted the slogan that the war cry of protests opposed Netanyahu while he is tried for corruption: “Capital! Regime! Underground world!”
Netanyahu is being tried for a series of cases in which he allegedly won generous gifts from billionaire friends and exchanged regulatory favors with media tycoons for a policy more favorable to him and his family. The prime minister denied wrongdoing, accused the media and law enforcement of a witch hunt to expel him from office, and refused to resign.
Demonstrators also made their way to Ohana after they reportedly insisted that police suppress protests in Jerusalem outdoors from Netanyahu’s official residence.
According to leaked recordings released Sunday through public broadcaster Kan, Ohana is challenging a Superior Court ruling that allowed protests opposing Netanyahu to continue in Jerusalem, and is putting immense pressure on the police to treat the demonstrators harder.
In reaction to the leak, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit on Tuesday sent a letter to interim police commissioner Moti Cohen telling him to make decisions solely on the basis of professional considerations.
“Decision-making on the handling of demonstrations has been given to the police under his leadership; with his favorable judgment and without [independent] considerations,” Mandelblit wrote.
The protests have been held several times during the following week near the Prime Minister’s residence. The protests attracted thousands of angry Israelis into government corruption, control of the coronavirus crisis, and other ills. There have been occasional scenes of violence during recent demonstrations, through police seeking to disperse protesters, as the videos of the scene have shown.
Netanyahu and some of his supporters have spoken out about the protesters as “anarchists.”
Ohana has reportedly already lobbied for the bannion of Jerusalem protests or moving from the same old site outside the official residence.
The High Court approved the ongoing protests near the prime minister’s official apartment in Jerusalem’s Rehavia neighborhood, infuriating some local citizens who asked the court to ban them, saying they were disrupting their lives.
Michael Bachner contributed to this report.