Israeli PM Netanyahu dismisses early election calls as thousands protest in Tel Aviv

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the notion of holding early elections, as thousands of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv for an anti-government demonstration.

Netanyahu’s popularity has declined significantly in polls following the Hamas attack on October 7, which led to the destructive conflict in Gaza.

Under pressure to secure the release of remaining hostages from the October 7 Hamas attack, Netanyahu stated that he complied with U.S. President Joe Biden’s request by sending a delegation to ceasefire negotiations in Cairo earlier in the week. Nevertheless, he expressed scepticism about the necessity of sending them again.

Although anti-government protests were prevalent throughout much of 2023, they diminished during the war. However, demonstrators returned to Tel Aviv streets on Saturday night, demanding new elections, despite the next scheduled elections not being until 2026.

The crowd was much smaller than last years’ mass protests, numbering a few thousand, according to local media.

“I’d like to say to the government that you’ve had your time, you ruined everything that you can ruin. Now is the time for the people to correct all the things, all the bad things that you’ve done,” said one protestor, his head wrapped in an Israeli flag.

Netanyahu was asked at a press briefing about calls within his own ruling Likud party to hold early elections right when the Gaza war ends.

“The last thing we need right now are elections and dealing with elections, since it will immediately divide us,” he said. “We need unity right now.”

Hamas wants a permanent cease-fire in Gaza and the release of Palestinians held by Israel.

Netanyahu also pushed back against international concern about a planned Israeli ground offensive in Rafah, a city on southern Gaza’s border with Egypt. He said “total victory” against Hamas requires the offensive, once people living there evacuate to safe areas. Where they will go in largely devastated Gaza is not clear.

New airstrikes in central Gaza on Saturday killed more than 40 people, including children, and wounded at least 50, according to Associated Press journalists and hospital officials. Israel’s military said it carried out strikes there against Hamas.

Five people were killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted a house outside Khan Younis in the south, according to health officials, and another five people, including three children, were killed in an airstrike on a building north of Rafah. Dr. Marwan al-Hams, director of Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital, said other bodies were being pulled from the rubble.

Israel’s air and ground offensive was triggered by the Oct. 7 attack that killed some 1,200 people in Israel and took 250 others hostage.

The Gaza Health Ministry on Saturday raised the overall death toll in Gaza to 28,858, saying the bodies of 83 people killed in Israeli bombardments were brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours. The count does not differentiate between combatants and civilians, but the ministry says two-thirds of those killed are women and children.

The war also has caused widespread destruction, displaced some 80% of Gaza’s population and sparked a humanitarian crisis in the Hamas-run enclave.