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Anti-Netanyahu Protesters Clash with Israeli Police

People protest on a day of strike and resistance, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem, June 27, 2024. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun TPX
People protest on a day of strike and resistance, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem, June 27, 2024. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun TPX
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Anti-Netanyahu Protesters Clash with Israeli Police

People protest on a day of strike and resistance, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem, June 27, 2024. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun TPX
People protest on a day of strike and resistance, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem, June 27, 2024. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun TPX

Israeli police deployed a water cannon and made several arrests on Thursday as protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's move to oust the head of the domestic intelligence service flared for a third consecutive day.

Thousands of Israelis have joined anti-Netanyahu demonstrations with opponents of the move to sack Shin Bet head Ronen Bar joining forces with protesters angry at the decision to resume fighting in Gaza, breaking a two-month-old ceasefire, while 59 Israeli hostages remain in the Palestinian enclave.

"We're very, very worried that our country is becoming a dictatorship," Rinat Hadashi, 59, said in Jerusalem. "They're abandoning our hostages, they're neglecting all the important things for this country."

On Thursday, police and demonstrators clashed as hundreds marched along the road leading to the prime minister's official residence in Jerusalem, where police said dozens of protesters tried to break through security cordons, Reuters reported.

Protests were planned later outside the Kirya military headquarters complex in Tel Aviv.

A day earlier there were angry confrontations between protesters and counter-demonstrators, highlighting divisions that have deepened since Netanyahu returned to power at the head of a right-wing coalition at the end of 2022.

Even before the war in Gaza, tens of thousands of Israelis were joining regular demonstrations protesting at a government drive to curb the power of the judiciary that critics saw as an assault on Israeli democracy but which the government said was needed to limit judicial overreach.

Since the start of the war, there have also been regular protests by families and supporters of hostages seized by Hamas during its assault on Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023 that have sometimes echoed the criticisms of the government.

Israel's cabinet is expected to meet on Friday to formally approve the dismissal of Bar, who has clashed with Netanyahu over a corruption investigation against aides in his office that the prime minister has called a politically motivated attack.

 

 

 

 

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Hegseth to Fly to the Philippines and Japan in First Visit to Asian Treaty Allies at Odds with China

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth walks back to the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 21 March 2025. (EPA)
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth walks back to the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 21 March 2025. (EPA)
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Hegseth to Fly to the Philippines and Japan in First Visit to Asian Treaty Allies at Odds with China

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth walks back to the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 21 March 2025. (EPA)
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth walks back to the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 21 March 2025. (EPA)

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is scheduled to visit the Philippines, the first stop in his first trip to Asia next week, for talks that will include increasing deterrence against aggression in the disputed South China Sea, a Philippine official said Friday.

Hegseth will be in Manila on March 28-29 to meet his Philippine counterpart, Gilberto Teodoro, and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Talks will touch on increasingly assertive actions by Beijing in the South China Sea and "more significant support" to Philippine security forces by the Trump administration, Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez told The Associated Press.

In the US, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell later said Hegseth will visit Hawaii to meet civilian and military leaders in the Indo-Pacific Command then tour US military facilities in Guam and receive briefings on capabilities before flying to the Philippines and Japan.

Hegseth would "advance security objectives with Philippine leaders and meet with US and Philippine forces. In Japan, he would participate in a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima and meet with Japanese leaders and US military forces, Parnell said and added without elaborating that "as always, the secretary looks forward to some great PT (physical training) with the troops!"

"These engagements will drive ongoing efforts to strengthen our alliances and partnerships toward our shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific," he said. The trip "comes as the United States builds on unprecedented cooperation with like-minded countries to strengthen regional security."

Trump’s "America First" foreign policy thrust has triggered concerns about the scale and depth of US commitment to the region under his new term.

"It’s a strong message to China on solid bilateral relations" between the US and the Philippines," Romualdez said of Hegseth's upcoming visit.

China claims virtually the entire South China Sea, a major security and global trade route. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also lay overlapping claims to the resource-rich and busy waters, but confrontations have particularly spiked between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and naval forces in the last two years.

In his first telephone talk with Teodoro last month, Hegseth "reaffirmed the ironclad US commitment to the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty and its importance for maintaining a secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific," according to a readout provided by Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot after the Feb. 5 call.

"The leaders discussed the importance of reestablishing deterrence in the South China Sea, including by working with allies and partners," Ullyot said. "They also discussed enhancing the capability and capacity of the Armed Forces of the Philippines."

After major territorial faceoffs between Chinese and Philippine forces in the disputed waters, the previous Biden administration had repeatedly warned that the US is obligated to help defend the Philippines under the treaty if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack in the Pacific, including in the South China Sea.

Beijing has warned Washington, in return, to stay out of what it calls a purely Asian dispute and stop actions that endanger regional harmony and stability.

Hegseth's visit to the Philippines comes a month before the longtime treaty allies hold the "Balikatan," Tagalog for shoulder to shoulder, their largest annual combat exercises that include live-fire drills, that in recent years have been held near the South China Sea and the sea border between the Philippines and Taiwan.

Taiwan is the self-governing island that China claims as its own territory and which it has been threatening to annex by force.