NEW DELHI, Oct 5: Unhappy over the handling of the Corona pandemic and imposition of lockdown by the prime minister Netanyahu, the people in Israel have launched nation-wide protests with even tourism minister quitting the cabinet over the issue.
At many places in the country including the capital city of Tel Aviv, people were spotted joining the protests without wearing face masks. The city security forces said the participants were “intentionally flouting all social distancing rules,” The police have not given an estimate of the participants but Israeli media reported that nearly 2000 people protested outside the PM’s official residence alone. The police claimed to have arrested hundreds of participants for flouting the social distancing rules.
Israeli people started to protest when Parliament imposed a law that restricted the number of participants in a public protest.
In defence of the government and the prime minister, an official spokesman said, “We announced lockdown to contain the spread of coronavirus in the nation, but local people feels that government finds another way to silent all voice against Prime Minister Netanyahu, which is totally wrong,”
Earlier the Tourism Minister of Israel – Asaf Zamir quit the coalition government alleging that the Prime Minister was more concerned about his ongoing corruption trial, rather than saving his people from the ongoing pandemic. “I am not willing to put up for another minute with a reality in which the right to demonstrate is restricted,” he wrote. “Therefore I must follow my conscience,” Asaf Zamir said
As per the Israel government data – More than 260,000 Israelis were infected by the coronavirus and 1600 of them died. Israel currently has the world’s highest weekly infection rate per capita.
(Vinayak Barot)