AL-QUDS (Dispatches) – Anti-regime protesters gathered in Al-Quds and converged on prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home, lighting a bonfire on the street outside and calling for his resignation.
“We’ve been abandoned — Elections now!” read one sign that rose above the crowd. Demonstrators yelled through megaphones, waved flags and banged on snare drums while police officers stood at barricades.
Such demonstrations have grown more frequent as the war in Gaza rages on and fighting in Lebanon threatens to escalate, but they have not reached the fever pitch of a year ago when Netanyahu’s regime tried to overhaul the occupying regime’s judiciary system.
Many in the crowd, which appeared to number in the thousands, also chanted their support for reaching a deal to free some 120 Israeli captives being held by Palestinian resistance movement Hamas in Gaza.
As the sun began to set, protesters blocked traffic and lit a large bonfire on the central Al-Quds street. The protest movement has yet to change the political landscape, and Netanyahu still controls a stable majority in parliament.
Such protests have grown more frequent as the war on Gaza rages on and fighting with Hezbollah resistance movement in Lebanon threatens to escalate.
Some 250 Israelis were taken captive on October 7 last year during a historic retaliatory operation by Gaza’s resistance movements against the usurping entity. The regime responded by launching the war that has so far killed at least 37,765 Palestinians, mostly women and children.
A week-long truce deal agreed in November saw Hamas releasing 105 of the captives in return for some 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
The movement has ever since agreed to two more truce proposals. Tel Aviv has, however, rejected one proposal and refused to respond to another, while escalating the war, something which has led to the death of some of the remaining captives.
Israel believes over 100 of the captives are still held in the Gaza Strip and that more than 70 of them are alive.
The Israeli opposition says Netanyahu is prolonging the war because he believes his “political future” will end when it stops, potentially leading to trials regarding past corruption charges.
Netanyahu faces charges of bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in three cases filed in 2019.