Demonstrators Vow to 'Save Israel' From Netanyahu in New Protests

Ultra-Orthodox Israelis have been protesting efforts to remove their long-standing exemption from military service - Oren ZIV
Ultra-Orthodox Israelis have been protesting efforts to remove their long-standing exemption from military service - Oren ZIV
TT

Demonstrators Vow to 'Save Israel' From Netanyahu in New Protests

Ultra-Orthodox Israelis have been protesting efforts to remove their long-standing exemption from military service - Oren ZIV
Ultra-Orthodox Israelis have been protesting efforts to remove their long-standing exemption from military service - Oren ZIV

Thousands of angry Israelis took to the streets on Monday for the third consecutive night to demand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quit -- and the demonstrators say they are not going away.

Mass protests uniting families of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza and an anti-government street movement that failed to unseat Netanyahu last year brought Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to a standstill on Saturday and Sunday.

As thousands again gathered in Tel Aviv and outside Israel's parliament in Jerusalem on Monday, several protesters told AFP that Netanyahu has to be forced out "to save Israel".

"This is an existential crisis for Israel," said Einat Avni Levi, 40, whose family had to flee from the Nirim kibbutz a little over two kilometres (1.25 miles) from the border barrier with Gaza.

"If someone comes and takes me from my bed, and I can't trust my army and my government to come and rescue me, I cannot live here," she said, referring to the around 250 hostages abducted by Hamas during the October 7 attack.

Netanyahu had long argued that he was the only leader who could keep Israelis safe. That claim was shattered by the Hamas attack that took Israel's much-vaunted security apparatus by surprise.

General Reuven Benkler, 65, who came out of retirement to serve for a month on the Lebanese border, said Netanyahu was "throwing the military success down the drain.

"There is no point in carrying on a war that has no goal. Wars are a diplomatic tool. The only goal of this war is keeping Bibi in power," he said using Netanyahu's nickname.

Like many at the protests, which are spearheaded by the hostages' families and their supporters, he was convinced Netanyahu was not trying to free them.

"There is no way the hostages will come home while he is still in power. He has sacrificed 134 hostages to stay in power," said Benkler, who leads a soldiers' group called Gunners for Democracy.

"He doesn't give a damn about anyone else apart from himself."

Israel believes about 130 hostages remain in Gaza, including 34 who are presumed dead.

But pressure has been growing on Netanyahu's right-wing coalition as anti-government protesters and the hostages' families have found common cause.

But with the country nearly six months into the war in Gaza -- where more than 32,845 have been killed, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry -- Netanyahu's supporters say this is not the time to change leader.

Many in front of parliament were angry that Israel's ultra-Orthodox -- who make up nearly one in five of its Jewish population -- are mostly excused military service.

General Benkler said it was an "outrage" when Israel "needed every man it can get", blaming the alliance with ultra-Orthodox parties that has kept Netanyahu in power.

Mother-of-six Tehila Elitzur said religious communities should no longer escape having "to do their duty".

"I have three reservist sons serving and one in the regular army. And my husband, a doctor, who is 54, is serving right now too."

But she said that Israel's fractured society needed to come together or "we will die".

Netanyahu was "using divisions to stay in power", she added.

A row over prolonging the exemptions -- which technically no longer apply from Monday -- is threatening Netanyahu's coalition government.

Army reservists protested in an ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood of Jerusalem on Sunday to demand that religious Jews be made to fight.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."