Thousands of Israelis call on Netanyahu to resign over Gaza war

Thousands of Israelis took to the streets again on Saturday to protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing religious government.

This is happening as there is no sign of a let-up in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza almost six months in.

In Tel Aviv, demonstrators called for early elections as well as the release of the remaining hostages held by the Palestinian extremist organisation Hamas in the Gaza Strip, according to media reports.

Protests also took place in other cities, including Jerusalem and Haifa.

In Tel Aviv, protesters clashed with police, according to police.

Sixteen people were arrested, according to media reports.

In Jerusalem, hundreds of protesters broke through a barrier near Netanyahu’s official residence.

Opponents of the government are planning major demonstrations in Jerusalem from Sunday onwards, which are to last for several days.

They also plan to demand the resignation of the government.

A former hostage, whose husband is still being held in Gaza, addressed the demonstration in Tel Aviv, calling on Netanyahu to “Bring them home!”

The woman called on the premier to give the Israeli negotiating team a “broad mandate” in talks on an agreement to release the remaining hostages in return for a ceasefire and a release of Palestinian prisoners.

“Don’t come home without a deal, bring our loved ones back,” she said.

The ongoing Gaza war was triggered by the unprecedented killing committed by Hamas and other Palestinian groups in southern Israel on October 7, of some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and 250 held hostage.

Israel responded by targeting densely populated Gaza with massive airstrikes and launching a ground operation in the sealed-off coastal area at the end of October.

More than 32,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed by Israeli forces  so far. Israel has also blocked food aid to Gaza where humanitarian crisis has reached catastrophic level.

Some 110 hostages were released in exchange for some 400 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails as part of a temporary truce agreement brokered by Qatar, the United States, and Egypt in November.

However, efforts to facilitate another ceasefire and the release of the remaining hostages have stalled repeatedly.

The foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, and France on Saturday again called for an immediate ceasefire to ensure an influx of aid into the embattled Gaza Strip.

During talks in Cairo, the ministers discussed the importance of an immediate truce agreement, aid deliveries and the release of hostages kept in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners in Israel, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri told a press conference after the meeting.

Shoukri added that he had also discussed with French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné and their Jordanian counterpart Ayman al-Safadi the risks of a planned Israeli ground offensive in Gaza’s city of Rafah near the Egyptian border.

More than one million Palestinians have taken refuge in Rafah after fleeing fighting elsewhere in the coastal strip, but in spite of mounting warnings from the international community, Israel says it is planning to go ahead with the full-scale incursion.

Séjourné said that France opposes any military action in Rafah.

France’s top diplomat also called for the opening of land crossings to give Gaza access to adequate relief aid and for the “immediate and unconditional” release of hostages held by Hamas.

The Jordanian minister accused Israel of using hunger as a weapon in the war and called for a binding UN Security Council resolution to stop what he called the “starvation crime.” The United States has so far backed every action of Israel, providing it with funds, weapons and political cover to continue with what the world termed as genocide against Palestinian civilians.

In an effort to ramp up aid deliveries, a freighter and two smaller ships carrying around 875 tons of aid for the population in the embattled Gaza Strip departed from the Cypriot port of Larnaca on Saturday afternoon, Cypriot radio and the Cyprus Times news portal reported.

The port of Larnaca is around 400 kilometres from Gaza.

In what is the second delivery of this kind, the ships are expected to arrive in around 65 hours, experts estimated on Cypriot radio.

In Gaza, Israeli troops continued their operations, killing a number of people in the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.