Photo: Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Last Saturday, about 20,000 protesters gathered outside Benjamin Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem. With parallel gatherings held outside Netanyahu’s private residence in Caesarea and at over 300 bridges and major intersections nationwide, the demonstrations are in their eleventh consecutive week. Activists are calling on the prime minister to resign in light of his ongoing corruption trial. Tensions ran high with police following documented incidents of police violence at a previous protest. As the crowds marched from Jerusalem’s Chords Bridge to the prime minister’s quarters, activists removed police barriers and clashes ensued, resulting in 12 protester arrests. Police said two officers were wounded. Regular protest attendee and prominent artist Zeev Engelmayer – appearing in the costume of his female character Shoshke – was halted at the entrance to the demonstration. Detained and outraged, Engelmayer said “instead of the police arresting our corrupt Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu who has cases [against him] and cheated and incites the people against each other, they stop me because of a cloth outfit.” On Friday night, 13 anti-government activists were arrested for attempting to load several police crowd control barriers onto a truck, ahead of Saturday’s demonstration outside the prime minister’s official residence in Jerusalem. In addition, a press photographer was detained for over an hour, with the police confiscating his camera. He was detained, according to the police, because his press card had expired.
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