“The police arrived here today ready for a violent demonstration. There were about 20 police cars on the street in the afternoon, which had not happened before, and they erected those barricades on both sides. But they discovered a demonstration very strongly. positive energy,” Shimon, 59, told the Times of Israel.
Shimon, who said he had attended the protests in Balfour for months, said he appreciated the new involvement of the people.
“It’s time. Which in protest of the elders has now taken a turn to surround the younger generation,” Shimon said with a smile.
When asked about the difference between Thursday’s relatively quiet atmosphere and Tuesday’s violent and angry clashes, the protesters presented other explanations. Tamar, a resident of Jerusalem, echoed the explanation given by protest organizer Tamir Hefetz, saying there had been provocateurs at the past demonstration.
Shimon noted that the two demonstrations also differed in size, as Tuesday’s protesters amounted to thousands of hundreds.
“With the demonstration, the police lost control,” Shimon said.
Ofra, 54, said so at the time she attended the protests, which had been going on for several weeks. “There is a sense as a country that we have completely lost our way, and that the other most sensible people are determined by themselves, not for us,” he said.
Amit, 26, arrived from central Israel to attend the protests for the first time. As a student, he said the economic effects of coronavirus forced him to move back in with his parents.
“I don’t think it’s a right or left demonstration. I’m not anywhere on the political spectrum. I have right-wing friends here and friends left here,” Amit said.
Avi Ofer, who claimed to be one of the organizers of the protest, told the Times of Israel that between 150 and two hundred people had registered for the night sleeping in a protest tent at the scene. It’s not transparent if they’d try to challenge the police’s orders to stay blank.
On Tuesday night, police used water cannons and stationary officials to disperse several hundred people who blocked the Jerusalem tram after midnight, following a gigantic open-air demonstration at the official residence.
Thousands of others piled up Tuesday night to ask Netanyahu to resign on his corruption charges, as several separate social protests were taking place across the country at the same time.
Some of the protesters tried to break down security barriers at the scene and clashed with police. At the end of the demonstration, a lot of other people moved to the city center, where they blocked the soft railing, singing “shame, shame” and “Bibi, move home.”
Police then directed water cannons to the protesters and arranged loaded police along the tram rails of Jaffa Street, sending protesters to disperse into the streets before regrouping.
Many then marched down Keren HaYesod Street, with some pushing garbage dumpsters and chain-link fences into the streets as makeshift barricades. Several dumpsters were set on fire.
Police said one officer was lightly wounded and 50 protesters were arrested.
On Sunday, the jerusalem in Jerusalem cleaned up the kiosks, tents and other devices that the protesters had brought to the site, which occupied all day and night.
The city corridor said in a statement that the site, which evolved after a legal demonstration a few weeks ago, had seized elements of a permanent “outpost,” which interrupted local citizens and hotels.
Jerusalem’s demonstration component of the ongoing “black flag” anti-corruption protests opposed Netanyahu, who is recently being tried in a series of corruption cases.
Protests have been held across the country, with demonstrators with symptoms of “Minister of Crime” and asking Netanyahu to resign.
Netanyahu faces charges of fraud and non-acceptance as true in 3 separate cases, as well as corruption in one of them.
He denied acting badly and said the fees were part of an effort through political opponents, the media, law enforcement and prosecutors from office.