Protests against the government’s judicial reform plan renewed on Thursday evening, with protests on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv for the first time since the day the reasonableness standard law was approved earlier this week.
The protests began with a march on Rothschild Street in Tel Aviv, which was set to arrive at a demonstration on Kaplan Street planned for later in the evening.
“Our protest is a non-violent protest and will remain so throughout. Non-violence is important to achieving our goals. The surest and fastest way is through non-violent, but impolite, civil resistance. The police are our brothers,” stressed the protest movement, advising protesters to record any unusual case of police violence or inappropriate behavior.
Police planning to escalate measures against protesters
After a series of violent incidents during the protests in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv on Monday, police were reportedly preparing on Thursday for the possible need to use riot dispersal methods, including tear gas, skunk water, batons, and stun grenades.
Anti-judicial overhaul activists block a raod during a protest against the government’s judicial overhaul, near the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, on July 24, 2023. (credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)KAN news reported that the police had intelligence that protesters were calling for an escalation at the demonstrations planned for Thursday night. “The preparations tonight for the demonstration in Tel Aviv are more massive because after what we saw on Monday, we understand that they are coming to fight the police,” a senior police official told KAN.
The police later denied that they were planning to use riot dispersal methods, stating that the reports “are not true and do not correspond to the preparations of the police.”
“At the same time, as has been said many times, we will not allow damage to police officers, infrastructure, and symbols of government – and will act with zero tolerance towards law breakers,” added the police.
The Kaplan Force expressed outrage at the reports that tear gas could be used against the protesters, stating “We call on the police chief to order the police spokesperson to stop his unnecessary and false campaign against the protest, and to make sure with his subordinates that the police will behave as expected tonight, protect the protesters, and allow the right to protest.”
“The spokesperson should keep his political opinions to himself. We will not allow him to slander the millions who go out to protest against the coup d’état.”
Sivan Tahel, the coordinator of the freedom of demonstration project at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, stated that, “Instead of the police taking responsibility for the brutal and unimaginable violence that officers used in the recent demonstrations, they are spreading threats about the use of tear gas.”
“The role of the police is first and foremost to maintain the safety and physical integrity of the demonstrators,” said Tahel. “Tear gas is a dangerous means that has no place in dispersing demonstrations. This is an indiscriminate measure, which can cause prolonged damage to various body systems and can even endanger the lives of populations at-risk – children, the elderly and people with underlying diseases.”
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