Thousands of people in Israel gathered in Tel Aviv to protest against the decision of the government Benjamin Netanyahu to reject the head of the domestic intelligence service Bet and take the fighting in Gaza.
Netanyahu said this week that he had lost confidence in Ronen Bar, who has managed Shin Bet since 2021, and intended to dismiss him from April 10, which caused three days of demonstrations.
On Saturday, the Israeli chief said that the country would remain democratic despite the dismissal of the security chief.
In the Place Habima de Tel Aviv, the demonstrators agitated blue and white Israeli flags and called for an agreement that would see the release of the remaining Israeli captives which were held in Gaza.
“The most dangerous enemy of Israel is Benjamin Netanyahu,” said demonstrator Moshe Haaharony, 63, at the news agency Reuters.
“Benjamin Netanyahu for 20 years does not care about the country, does not care about citizens.”
Netanyahu rejected the accusations that the decision was politically motivated, but his criticism accused him of having undermined the institutions underlying the democracy of Israel by asking for the dismissal of the bar.
Friday, the Supreme Court of Israel published an injunction, temporarily freeing the dismissal.
Netanyahu and Bar has been rubbed for months in the midst of tensions on an investigation into corruption focused on the Prime Minister’s office and the recriminations on the fact of not preventing Hamas on October 7, 2023 against the south of Israel.
Bar declared in a letter that his eviction was motivated by the desire to stop the “pursuit of the truth” on the events which led to October 7.
The head of the Israeli opposition, Yair Lapid, called for a general strike on Saturday if Netanyahu refuses to take into account the dismissal of the freezing bar of the Supreme Court.
“If the government of October 7 decides not to obey the court’s decision, this will become an outlaw government that day,” Lapid told demonstrators in Tel Aviv.
“If this happens, the whole country must stop,” he said, stressing that “the only system that should not close is the security system.”
Some Israelis denounce what they consider a quarter of autocratic by Netanyahu, who summons his cabinet on Sunday to launch the dismissal procedure against the Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, another critic of the Prime Minister.
Baharav-Miara, who is also the government’s legal advisor, warned Netanyahu that the decision of the Supreme Court “forbids” him to appoint a new chief of Shin Bet.
A demonstration against the dismissal of the Attorney General is also scheduled for Sunday outside the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament and near the Prime Minister’s private residence in West Jerusalem.
During the rally on Saturday, the demonstrators retained the signs “more blood effusions”, “how many more blood must be shed?” And “Stop war now!” To guarantee the return of 59 captives still held in the Gaza Strip.
Israel returned to war in Gaza on Tuesday, breaking a ceasefire that saw the exchange of captives held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli prisons and has brought the beaten and besieged enclave a respite.
Since the start of the war, there have been regular demonstrations of families and supporters of the captives seized by Hamas during the October 7 attacks which sometimes also criticized the government.
“We are a year and a half later after we had very ferocious fights in Gaza, and Hamas is still in power,” demonstrated demonstrator Erez Berman, 44, in Reuters. “He still has tens of thousands of fighters, so the Israeli government has in fact failed to withdraw its own war objectives.”
With the resumption of the War of Israel in Gaza, the fate of captives, of which up to 24 are still considered alive, remains uncertain, and the demonstrators declared that a return to war could see them either killed by their kidnappers or by Israeli bombardments.
Ophir Falk, Netanyahu foreign policy advisor, said military pressure had pushed Hamas to accept the first truce in November 2023, in which around 80 captives were returned. He argued that it was also the safest way to force the release of the remaining captives.
