
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara arrived at Ben Gurion International Airport to board a flight to Italy.
Due to roadblocks by demonstrators protesting the government’s judicial reform legislation, the couple was taken to the airport by a police helicopter.
- To prevent protesters from blocking the Prime Minister’s motorcade, an Air Force CH-35 Sea Stallion helicopter sat for several hours on the helipad at Hadassah Ein Kerem Medical Center, protected by police and Shin Bet personnel.
- Protesters demonstrated near the helipad and waited for Netanyahu, but meanwhile, the Prime Minister and the First Lady took off in a police helicopter from another location in Jerusalem.
Prior to taking off for Italy, Netanyahu met with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who arrived in the country early this afternoon.
“Day of Disruption”
Hundreds of demonstrations were planned for Thursday, during which roadblocks and disruptions were planned to protest the judicial reform legislation.
On Thursday morning, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the police advance control room at Ben Gurion Airport and held a situation assessment with the commander of Israel Police Central Region, Avi Biton, and the airport’s chief supervisor, Etty Ganis.
- Beforehand, Ben-Gvir confronted protesters. “We won’t let anarchists block the airport. We will prevent anarchy,” he insisted.
Demonstrators in hundreds of cars blocked the entrance to the airport’s Terminal 3, and police issued fines to a large number of drivers.
- Meanwhile, the head of the National Unity party, MK Benny Gantz, has demanded that Attorney-General Gali Beharav-Miara take immediate action to prevent Minister Ben-Gvir from making operational decisions for the police force with regard to the anti-government protests.
- In his letter to Beharav-Miara, Gantz asked her to “prohibit the National Security Minister from entering the police advance control room during the protests today, and to order him to abide by the law and refrain from involvement and giving orders to the police commissioner and officers in all matters related to the demonstrations.”
Gantz added that “The Minister has called the protesters ‘anarchists’ and is making political use of the police force, placing himself in the control room, giving out orders to police commanders, and posing for pictures in order to sway people against the protest.”
Gantz also claimed that “In one instance, the minister publicly upbraided the commander of the Jerusalem district for a decision made in real-time.”
Source: Hezki Baruch – Arutz Sheva
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