In Israel, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets again on Saturday in protest against the legal reforms that the right-wing government wants to implement. The protests, which have been going on for months, cap an extra tense week.
The protests come amid rising violence in Israel, Jerusalem and the West Bank. About 250 Palestinians and 43 Israelis have been killed in the past year.
The center of the demonstrations is Tel Aviv, where the protest began on Saturday with a minute’s silence for the victims of two attacks on Friday. In the Israeli coastal town, one person was killed and seven injured on Friday evening after an Arab Israeli drove into tourists with a car. The perpetrator was shot.
Earlier in the day, an attack on the Israeli-occupied West Bank killed two young British-Israeli sisters.
Attacks response to Al Aqsa Mosque raids
The attacks were a Palestinian response to Israeli raids on Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque on Wednesday and Thursday. At the time of the raids, Muslims were praying in the mosque during their holy month of Ramadan. Several Palestinians were injured and Israeli troops made hundreds of arrests.
In response to the violence at Al Aqsa Mosque, rockets were fired from and to Lebanon, Israel and the occupied Gaza Strip. The Israeli army said on Saturday that three rockets were fired at Israel from Syria. One of them ended up on the Golan Heights.
A 20-year-old Palestinian was also shot dead by Israeli troops on Saturday evening during a confrontation between the army and a group of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. This is reported by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Legal reforms temporarily postponed
The protesters in Israel are protesting the right-wing government and the controversial legal reforms that give the government more power at the expense of the judiciary.
Due to the mass protests and after a general strike, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu postponed the bill late last month to create “space for dialogue”.
