Hundreds of Thousands Protest for Ninth Week

Pilots Refuse to Train, Man Netanyahu’s Flight

Date: 05 March 2023 - 21:55

News ID: ۱۱۳۱۲۲

OCCUPIED AL-QUDS (Dispatches) -- The majority of reserve pilots in an elite Israeli air force unit, 37 out of 40, have announced they will not participate in training or duty in protest against the occupying regime’s controversial judicial overhaul.
The action left hardline prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, high and dry after no one volunteered to fly them out to Rome for a visit to Italy scheduled later this week, El Al Airlines said on Sunday.
Netanyahu is expected to fly out on Thursday to meet with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. In a statement, El Al said that “the issue of manning the prime minister’s flight is yet to be resolved due to a shortage of qualified pilots in our Boeing 777 squadron, among other reasons”.
The fighter pilots from the Zionist regime’s air force squadron 69, who operate advanced F15 Thunderbird aircraft that serve as the military’s long-range attack arm, informed their squadron commander and the heads of the air force of the decision on Sunday.
Last week, reservists from the 8,200 intelligence unit also started strike action over the occupying regime’s plan to dramatically increase the prime minister’s powers.
The cyber intelligence specialists wrote an open letter to the heads of Mossad, the Shin Bet and the Zionist military, saying that the changes would harm “the moral and legal framework that enables us to develop and run the sensitive capabilities we operate”.
“In such a scenario...we will not be able to continue volunteering for service in the field of cyber operation,” they wrote.
The changes would give parliament the power to override supreme court decisions through a simple majority vote and de facto control over court nominees, a role currently held by a mixed panel of politicians, judges and bar association members.
It would also limit the court’s ability to overturn unconstitutional legislations.
An Israeli parliament committee on Wednesday approved the restriction of the supreme court’s power to override laws, a significant part of the overhaul.
The bills will now go through three readings at the Knesset, or parliament, before a final vote.
Mass protests have taken place over the past few weeks against the regime’s plans.
On Saturday night, hundreds of thousands of protesters held massive rallies for the ninth straight week across the occupied territories against prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans.

The rallies were held in the coastal city of Tel Aviv, the occupied city of Al-Quds, and the city of Karmiel, near the coastal city of Haifa, as well as Netanya, Herzliya and Beersheba among other places.

According to official estimates cited in local media, some 160,000 people turned out for the Tel Aviv demo. Many more thousands joined smaller rallies in other cities, with some citing a grand total as high as 250,000.

In Tel Aviv, the protesters held up a large banner that read “Crime Minister” in reference to Netanyahu, with participants shouting “Shame!”

They also waved banners, some of which read, “Oh police, where were when they [Israeli settlers] burned Huwara?” in reference to the terrorist pogrom against Palestinians by Zionists settlers last week in the town of Huwara, south of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus.

Demonstrators also held a banner bearing the images of two hardline ministers of the regime and behind it a picture of the town of Huwara burning following the settlers’ attack.

Zionist settlers threatened to return to Huwara in a repeat of last weekend’s night of violence that left one Palestinian martryed and nearly 400 others injured.

Posting threats on social media, settlers have threatened to “destroy” the town, much of which was set ablaze last Sunday.

The calls for a second attack were spread across Twitter and in several WhatsApp groups, including “News in the Hills”, a popular updates group for radical Zionist settlers, Haaretz reported.

A week ago, hundreds of settlers, flanked by troops, attacked Palestinian towns and villages near Nablus, following a shooting that killed two Zionists in Huwara.

Still, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich on Wednesday said the occupying regime of Israel should “wipe out” the Palestinian village of Huwara in the wake of Sunday’s violent rampage.

“The Palestinian village of Huwara should be wiped out,” he said.

On Tuesday, former war minister Benny Gantz said Smotrich wanted “another Nakba”, a term that describes the massacres and forced expulsion Palestinians endured at the hands of Zionist militias in 1948, as the new Israeli state came into existence.

Hady Amr, U.S. special representative for Palestinian affairs, condemned the “wide scale, indiscriminate violence” by Israeli settlers after visiting Huwara, and said that he wanted to see “full accountability and legal prosecution” of the settlers responsible for the mob violence.

On Saturday, scuffles broke out in Tel Aviv at the end of the mass protest against Netanyahu’s proposed plan, when a group of protesters breached barricades and clashed with the regime’s security forces, blocking a Tel Aviv highway for a short while.

Zionist forces on horseback confronted the demonstrators, some of whom lit up a torch, and used water cannons to hold them back.

Israeli media put the number of demonstrators in various cities across the occupied territories at more than 200,000, adding that around 160,000 took part in Tel Aviv protest alone.

In Haifa, the number of demonstrators was significantly higher than previous weeks. They demanded Netanyahu step down. The protesters also waved banners with slogans written in Hebrew, English and Arabic, including: “Palestinian lives matter,” “A people occupying another people cannot be free,” and “It is time to overthrow the dictator.”

Netanyahu returned to power as the regime’s prime minister in late December, heading a coalition of far-right and extremist parties.

To buy the loyalty of those parties, he has vowed to bring about major changes across the regime’s judicial system. His proposed changes seek to take away the supreme court’s ability to override decisions made by Netanyahu’s extremist cabinet and the Knesset.

The so-called reforms have already received first-reading endorsement from the Knesset.

Observers say the changes can potentially enable the Knesset to annul a set of corruption charges that Netanyahu is being tried on. The prime minister is being sued for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.

They would also empower the Knesset to amend the so-called Basic Laws -- the regime’s quasi-constitution -- in any way it sees fit.

The anti-Netanyahu marches have attracted huge crowds on a weekly basis since early January, when he introduced his plan.