AL-QUDS (Dispatches) – Thousands of people took to the streets in Al-Quds, continuing a three-day protest against the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s regime and demanding new elections.
The protests gathered in intensity as the war in Gaza nears the end of its sixth month and anger at the regime’s handling of the 134 Israeli captives still held by the resistance movement Hamas in Gaza has grown.
“We’re here to protest. To ask for having elections as soon as possible. We feel like we got it to the edge. We really need to get rid of Bibi,” said Timna Benn, a protester in Al-Quds, using Netanyahu’s nickname.
Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition faced some of the biggest protests in the occupying regime’s history last year, when hundreds of thousands joined weekly demonstrations against plans to overhaul the powers of the supreme court.
Netanyahu has repeatedly ruled out early elections, which opinion polls suggest he would lose, saying that to go to the polls in the middle of a war would only reward Hamas.
He has pledged to bring the captives back. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed during Israel’s months-long assault, according to health authorities.
But after months when the crisis in Gaza put the normal rules of politics on hold, Netanyahu has faced increasingly vocal opposition.
Surveys indicate that most Israelis blame Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, for the security failures that led to the operation by Hamas fighters on communities in southern parts of the Israeli-occupied territories on Oct. 7.
“They are not concerned about what happens with the people. They are concerned about maintaining their position. They work for themselves, not for the people. Simple as that,” said protester Refael Shakked-Gavish.
Adding an additional complication, Netanyahu also has faced protests by ultra Orthodox demonstrators, angry at the removal of exemptions that have kept young students from religious seminaries from compulsory military service.