Israel election protest fills Tel Aviv ahead of Tuesday vote

Thousands of people filled Hostages Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday for an Israel election protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, days before Israelis vote in a general election widely read as a verdict on his leadership. Marchers set out from Rabin Square and moved through central Tel Aviv carrying Israeli flags and placards showing victims of the Hamas attack that started the Gaza war, according to local media reports. The rally, held on October 24, was the last large anti-government demonstration before polling day.

The protest was organized by the October Council, a group formed by relatives and friends of people killed or taken hostage during the Hamas-led attack on October 7. Organizers put the turnout at about 100,000 people, a figure Israeli media reported, while other accounts described the crowd simply as thousands strong. Demonstrators chanted against Netanyahu and called for political change, and drone footage of the packed square spread widely online after the event.

The rally also drew former hostages and relatives of people still campaigning for answers, alongside activists and former military officials, according to reports from the square. For many in the crowd, the protest was less about party politics than about accountability for the deadliest day in the country's history, and the sense that the questions surrounding it have gone unanswered for too long. That frustration, visible in the size of the crowd and the breadth of the opposition presence, is what Netanyahu's rivals hope to carry into polling day.

A demand for an inquiry

At the center of the rally was one demand: an independent state commission of inquiry into the security failures that allowed the attack to happen. The October Council has pressed for such a panel for years, and its message ahead of the rally, posted on X, framed Saturday as the culmination of that campaign. Netanyahu has refused to establish the commission, and he rejects claims that he received advance warnings of the assault or that the timeline of that morning was falsified, according to reporting on the dispute. He has also filed defamation lawsuits against Israeli news organizations over coverage of the issue.

For the families behind the council, the election is the route to an inquiry they could not get from the current government. Opposition parties in the bloc seeking to replace Netanyahu have agreed to approve an independent inquiry in the next political term, a commitment that gives the rally a direct stake in the result. Protesters at the square said the families affected by the attack still lack answers about how it happened and what went wrong.

A tight race on Tuesday

The vote on October 27 is the first general election since the attack and the subsequent wars in Gaza and Lebanon and strikes against Iran. It is also the sixth national election in seven years, a run of instability that has left Israeli politics deeply divided. Opinion polls published before a pre-election polling blackout began on Friday night showed a close contest, with Netanyahu's right-wing bloc, in power since late 2022, running neck and neck with the bloc led by his main centre-right rival, Gadi Eisenkot. Neither side was projected to win a majority of seats in parliament.

Opposition leaders turned out in force at the rally. Eisenkot, a former general who leads the Yashar! party and lost a son in Gaza, was greeted warmly by the crowd, and the leaders of the four main opposition parties also took part, including former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Democrats leader Yair Golan. In Tel Aviv, Eisenkot was met with chants calling him the next prime minister, reported by the Times of Israel. Anti-government demonstrations were also reported elsewhere in Israel on the same day, according to Haaretz.

What happens after the vote will turn on coalition arithmetic as much as on the headline result. With neither bloc projected to hold a majority, smaller parties could decide whether an inquiry is finally established or whether Netanyahu survives another election and keeps blocking one. The October Council, in its pre-rally statement, described Saturday as the end of three years of struggle to uncover the truth and demand accountability. The Israel election protest showed how much of the campaign now turns on accountability rather than party loyalty. Voters now decide whether that struggle ends with a commission or continues under the same government.

Reporting on the rally, including accounts from the square and the pre-election polling picture, is available in AFP coverage of the Tel Aviv demonstration and in a second account of the rally. Readers following the campaign can also browse more politics coverage.