Israel: Thousands Mass at Anti-Overhaul Rallies, Block Highway After Rail Station Protests
Protesters campaigning against the government’s push to pass a law curbing the courts’ oversight powers demonstrated Tuesday at train stations across Israel as part of a fresh day of protests against the judicial overhaul.
In the evening, mass rallies were held at numerous sites around the country, including a demonstration attended by tens of thousands on Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street, which has been the site of the main weekly anti-government protests.
Thousands of protesters blocked part of the Ayalon Highway, the main route through the coastal city, with police using a water cannon and mounted officers to clear demonstrators.
The day of protests came as the government has ploughed ahead with legislation that will do away with courts’ ability to strike down cabinet and ministerial decisions over their “unreasonableness,” part of a wide-reaching package of changes to the judiciary that critics say will remove critical fetters on government power and drastically weaken the Supreme Court.
Police restricted access to several stations during the afternoon rallies, with hundreds gathering outside Tel Aviv’s HaShalom Station as demonstrators and journalists were barred from entering.
Demonstrators who did manage to get into the station rallied on the platform, with Israel Railways briefly instructing trains not to stop there on the grounds that the protest posed a danger. Officers arrested six protesters who allegedly tried to delay a train.
In the central city of Lod, police kept people out of the station entirely and at Haifa’s Hof HaCarmel station, a large police presence kept demonstrators off the platforms. In Binyamina, police allowed protesters to enter the platforms but warned them not to try to block the trains.
Rallies were also held at train stations in Beersheba and Herzliya, where police arrested two on suspicion of disturbing public order. According to a police statement, officers were instructed to block protesters from the train platforms, citing “a clear danger to life and our role to safeguard the wellbeing and security of citizens.”
“The police are acting with the necessary proportionality while maintaining the proper balance between freedom of expression and protest, and maintaining public order,” the statement said. “If the law is breached, police will be forced to restore order with all means at their disposal.”
Adding to the chaos amid the protests, Israel Railways announced a nationwide halt of services in the early evening, citing a computer malfunction. The shutdown, which lasted about an hour before service resumed, did not appear to be related to the mass demonstrations.
Due to the disruption, hundreds of train riders trying to get to Tel Aviv were forced to exit idling rail cars at the HaHagana Station in the city’s south, an eyewitness said. The traveller, who was attempting to reach his home in central Tel Aviv after arriving on a flight from the US hours earlier, said his train was sitting for at least 10 minutes at the station when a person announced over the PA that all train services were being halted.
