Jerusalem
CNN
—
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced fury from protesters outside Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem, a day after he resumed the war in Gaza, shattering the two-month-old ceasefire with Hamas.
On Highway 1 – the main road connecting Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – protesters held a banner reading: “The future of the coalition or the future of Israel.”
The banner underlined a message delivered by thousands of people to the capital on Wednesday: That over nearly 18 months of war and fragile ceasefires, Netanyahu continues to prioritize his political survival over the security of his country, the lives of Israeli hostages and those of Palestinians in Gaza.
The anger in those accusations was palpable on Wednesday, just a day after Israel bombarded Gaza, killing more than 400 people and injuring hundreds more, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry – marking one of the war’s deadliest days.
The Israeli military said Wednesday that it had launched “targeted ground activities” in Gaza, partially recapturing a key area in the territory.
For Netanyahu, breaking the ceasefire has helped shore up his shaky coalition amid his ongoing corruption trial and ahead of a key vote on Israel’s budget.
The resumption of fighting won Netanyahu back the support of Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right minister who quit the government in protest against January’s ceasefire deal. On Tuesday, shortly after the fresh bombardment of Gaza, his Jewish Power party announced it would rejoin Netanyahu’s coalition.
But for many Israelis, the renewed fighting has stirred feelings of despair – and rage with the government. For Palestinians, it means the end of a brief respite that lasted just two months.
Plus, restarting the war doesn’t align with what many Israelis want, according to recent polling from the Jerusalem-based think tank the Israel Democracy Institute, who said in early March that the vast majority of Israeli supported the ceasefire.
Over 70% of Israelis supported negotiating with Hamas for an end to the fighting and an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages, the Institute said. Notably, a large proportion (61.5%) of voters from Netanyahu’s Likud party supported continuing the second stage of the ceasefire deal, it said.
Now, as Netanyahu digs in his heels with the renewed campaign, many worry about how an already fractured society will fare.
Protesting alongside thousands outside the Knesset, Yuval Yairi, an artist from Jerusalem and former director of an art school, told CNN he believed the fighting had been restarted for political reasons – saying Netanyahu needed his right-wing allies on-side ahead of the March 31 budget vote deadline – and said the war was corrosive of Israel’s democracy.
“I’m very concerned about the possibility of a civil war. This nation is divided. It sometimes seems there’s no way out. People don’t believe in democracy anymore. They don’t believe in the life that we had before everything started. You see the division: religion on one side, secularism on the other. It seems hopeless,” Yairi said.
Eliad Shraga, chairman for the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a legal watchdog, agreed that Netanyahu’s war in Gaza was being waged to keep him in power.
“Netanyahu wanted to escape justice. This is the only reason we are facing the regime coup and this bloody war. This is a dangerous mixture,” Shraga told CNN.
Netanyahu had been scheduled to testify in his corruption trial on Tuesday, but the hearing was canceled due to the resumption of military activities in Gaza just hours before he was due in court. The prime minister denies any wrongdoing.
“One reason he wanted to escape justice is because he wants to keep his coalition and he is ready to sacrifice his people, this is it. It’s very simple,” said Shraga, adding that the resumption of fighting showed once more that Netanyahu “doesn’t care about the hostages” in Gaza who were due to be freed under the ceasefire deal.
“We are sacrificing our kids in this, (while) our (Prime Minister) sells his soul,” said Shraga.
Netanyahu has argued that military pressure on Hamas is necessary to return the hostages.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid joined Wednesday’s demonstration, which he said aim to “make sure that the government understands they cannot do whatever they want.”
Wearing a yellow ribbon to signal his support for the hostages held in Gaza, Lapid told CNN the protesters are “trying to tell the people of the world that Israel is not going to stay silent when they’re taking away our democracy.”
As demonstrators banged pots and pants and chanted, “Bring them home now,” a Knesset committee approved a contentious bill seeking to change the make-up of the panel that selects Israel’s judges, called the Judicial Selection Committee.
Under a framework proposed in January by Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, this bill would replace the two independent lawyers currently on the panel with one representative from the governing coalition and one from the opposition.
The bill is associated with the controversial judicial overhaul package sought by Netanyahu’s government in 2023 before the war in Gaza began – which sparked some of the largest protests in Israel’s history.
Although the bill is not as drastic as some of the 2023 measures, critics say it would politicize the selection committee by watering down the influence of independent lawyers.
Lapid said the “extremist” bill will ensure that “judges will be in the politicians’ pocket.”
“The politicians will appoint them, control them, ensure that they do anything they’re told,” Lapid said after the panel approved the bill, which now needs to pass second and third readings in the parliamentary plenum before it can become law.
Still, as thousands rallied against what they view as Netanyahu’s assault on democracy outside the Knesset, some were showing support for the prime minister and his renewed war aims.
Standing in the “Heroism and Hope Forum” tent, a group that supports continued military action in Gaza, Margalit Yachad, a volunteer ambulance driver, said she believes Netanyahu is acting in the country’s best interest.
“I don’t know why there’s so much hate about him or the right. We should respect the leader first and not say horrible things about him, because the enemy sees that we are all broken into parts — and we can’t win like that,” Yachad told CNN.
