Mass demonstrations in Israel in protest against the agreement to form a unity government between Netanyahu and Gantz and charges of corruption threaten to thwart it

More than a thousand people demonstrated Saturday night in Tel Aviv, protesting the agreement to form a unity government in Israel between Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, on the eve of the start of the Israeli Supreme Court’s consideration of this agreement.

Eight complaints were submitted to the Israeli judiciary regarding the terms of this agreement and whether it was possible for Netanyahu to form the next government, despite charges of corruption.

The Supreme Court considers these complaints Sunday and Monday, days before the deadline until Thursday for the formation of a government under the agreement expires.

About 1,500 people gathered in Rabin Square in central Tel Aviv, and observed the rules of social separation, according to an AFP journalist at the scene.

The protesters held up banners reading “36 ministers, do you not feel shame?”

After three elections that did not allow either of them to achieve a majority with their allies, Netanyahu and his former electoral opponent Gantz signed an agreement to form a unity government in the hope of ending the longest political crisis in the history of the Hebrew state.

The agreement provides for the formation of a government of 32 ministers for the first six months of its reign to confront the Covid-19 crisis, to be considered as expanding it to 36 ministers to become the largest government in the country’s history.

The demonstrators, who put on protective masks, respected the distance between the two meters, as part of the measures taken to combat the Coronavirus, which officially infected more than 16,000 people in Israel, of whom 229 died.