Israel-Gaza war: anti-government protesters clash with Tel Aviv police and demand hostage deal

Scuffles between Israeli police and protesters have erupted in Tel Aviv after thousands gathered to demonstrate against the government and demand that it bring back the hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza.

Meanwhile, a small US military vessel and what appeared to be a strip of docking area washed up on a beach near the southern Israeli city of Ashdod on Saturday, not far from the US-built pier on which the Israeli military said humanitarian aid is moving into the Palestinian territory.

Some protesters in Tel Aviv carried photos of the female soldiers who appeared in a video earlier in the week showing them soon after they were abducted during the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October. Some held banners reading, Stop the war and Help. They called on the government to reach a deal to release the dozens of hostages still in captivity.

The protesters also called for the resignation of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and demanded new elections.

“We all saw the video, we could not stay at home after the government abandoned all these people,” said Hilit Sagi, from the group Women Protest for the Return of All Hostages.

Seven people were arrested at the protest late Saturday and at least one person was injured, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported. Protests also took place elsewhere around the country, including in the port city of Haifa, the paper wrote.

Divisions among Israelis have deepened over how Netanyahu has handled the war against Hamas after the attack that killed about 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage. Israel says around 100 hostages are still being held in Gaza, along with the bodies of around 30 more.

About 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry, many of them women and children. Thousands more are believed to be buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings and tens of thousands have been wounded.

“Basically they are not doing enough in order for the hostages to come back, either with military force, with [a] hostages’ deal, negotiating. Nothing is being done,” said Snir Dahan, uncle of hostage Carmel Gat, still in captivity in Gaza.

Earlier in the week, the bodies of three hostages were recovered from Gaza, Israel’s army said Friday. The army said they were killed on the day of the attack and their bodies were taken to Gaza. The announcement came less than a week after the army said it found the bodies of three other Israeli hostages killed on 7 October.

Around half of the 250 hostages taken by Hamas and other militants have been freed, most in swaps for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel during a weeklong cease-fire in November.

Netanyahu’s government has faced increasing pressure, both at home and abroad, to stop the war and allow humanitarian aid into the enclave that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians, almost 80% of whom have been displaced.

This week, three European countries announced they would recognise a Palestinian state, and the chief prosecutor for the international criminal court requested arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, along with Hamas officials.

On Friday the international court of justice ordered Israel to end its military offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah and to open the nearby border crossing for crucial humanitarian aid. The top UN court also said Israel must give war crimes investigators access to Gaza.

However, the judges stopped short of ordering a full cease-fire across the entire Palestinian territory, and Israel is unlikely to comply with the court’s ruling – on Saturday it continued to bombard Rafah and Palestinian medics said 45 people were killed in Israeli attacks throughout the territory, including women and children, over the past 24 hours.

South Africa, which brought the original ICJ case in December, accuses Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians during the war in Gaza, which Israel vehemently denies.

One man, Abu Mohammad, said he had been taking shelter with his family at a school in Gaza City’s Saftawi suburb with other families, when an Israeli missile struck a yard outside a classroom where women were preparing bread.

“We were sitting peacefully, then there was boom, a missile from a controlled drone, or a regular drone, but it did massive damage,” he told Reuters. He said several people were killed, adding: “Even schools are not safe anymore.”

The Israeli military said it was looking into the report.

In the past two weeks, more than a million Palestinians have fled Rafah as Israeli forces press deeper into the city. Israel’s takeover this month of the Rafah border crossing, a key transit point for fuel and supplies for Gaza, has contributed to bringing aid operations to near collapse, the UN and relief groups say.

Israel claims it needs to invade Rafah to destroy Hamas’ last stronghold. Egypt said it agreed to send UN humanitarian aid trucks through the Kerem Shalom border crossing, Israel’s main entry point into southern Gaza. But it remains unclear if the trucks will be able to enter because fighting still rages in Rafah.

Israel claims aid is moving into the Palestinian territory through northern Gaza and via the US-built pier. But on Saturday, a small US military boat and what appeared to be a strip of docking area washed up on a beach near the southern Israeli city of Ashdod.

US Central Command (Centcom) said in a statement that four vessels supporting the floating aid delivery pier had broken free from their moorings in rough seas. No injuries were reported and the aid pier remains fully functional, Centcom said in a statement, adding that no US personnel would enter Gaza.

Two of the affected vessels were now anchored on the beach near the pier and the other two were beached on the coast of Israel near Ashkelon, Centcom said, adding that efforts to recover the vessels were under way with assistance from the Israeli Navy.

American officials hope the pier at maximum capacity can bring the equivalent of 150 truckloads of aid to Gaza daily. But that’s a fraction of the 600 truckloads of food, emergency nutritional treatments and other supplies that USAID says are needed each day to bring people in Gaza back from the brink of famine and address the humanitarian crisis created by the Israeli offensive.

Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report