JERUSALEM -- Israeli police on Wednesday fired stun grenades and water cannons at demonstrators who blocked a Tel Aviv highway, while protesters scuffled with police near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's private residence in Jerusalem as weeks of anti-government protests turned violent for the first time.
Thousands across the country staged a "national disruption day," the latest in a string of mass protests against Netanyahu's plan to overhaul Israel's judiciary and weaken the country's Supreme Court.
The plan has drawn heavy criticism from wide swaths of Israeli society and pleas from international allies for Netanyahu to slow down. A wave of unusually intense Israeli-Palestinian violence in the occupied West Bank has helped fuel tensions, with radical West Bank settlers rampaging through a Palestinian village earlier this week.
Netanyahu and his coalition partners, a collection of ultra-Orthodox and hard-line nationalist parties, say the plan is needed to rein in the powers of unelected judges. Critics say Netanyahu, a defendant standing trial for corruption charges, holds a personal grudge against the justice system and is pushing the country toward autocracy.
In Tel Aviv, crowds of protesters amassed outside a salon where Netanyahu's wife, Sara, had gone to get her hair done late Wednesday. Israeli media said police were called to rescue her as protesters chanted, "The country is burning and Sara is getting a haircut!"
The Netanyahus have been criticized for being out of touch with regular Israelis and living a lavish lifestyle at taxpayer expense. Last week, an Israeli parliamentary committee approved new funding for Netanyahu and his family.
In a late-night address, Netanyahu criticized the anti-government protesters and attempted to compare them to the violent mob of settlers that tore through the West Bank town of Hawara this week, torching dozens of homes, businesses and cars and killing one Palestinian.
"The freedom to demonstrate is not a license to drag the country into anarchy," Netanyahu said. "We will not accept breaking the rules and violence, not in Hawara, not in Tel Aviv and not anywhere."
Netanyahu made no mention of a call Wednesday by his Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a firebrand West Bank settler leader, for Hawara to be "erased" by the Israeli state.
Protests continued into the night. Near Netanyahu's Jerusalem home, demonstrators briefly broke down a barricade and scuffled with security forces.
In the first scenes of unrest, police arrived on horseback in the center of the seaside metropolis of Tel Aviv, hurled stun grenades and used a water cannon against thousands who chanted "democracy" and "police state."
A video posted on social media showed a police officer pressing his knee into a protester's neck and another showed a man who reportedly had his ear ripped off by a stun grenade. Police said protesters threw rocks and water bottles at the officers.
In Tel Aviv and later in Jerusalem, the protesters shouted "Where were you in Hawara?" at policemen, referring to Sunday's settler rampage that went largely unchecked and unpunished. The military has said it was not prepared for the mob in Hawara, and that it took hours to bring the situation under control.
Police said they arrested dozens of protesters nationwide for disturbing the peace Wednesday while 11 people were hospitalized with various injuries, according to Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center.
SHOOTING SUSPECTS ARRESTED
Israeli troops arrested three Palestinians on Wednesday suspected of involvement in the killing earlier this week of an American-Israeli while a fourth was shot and killed fleeing the scene of a daylight raid in a West Bank refugee camp, the military said.
The arrest raid in the Aqabat Jaber refugee camp near Jericho came as Israel's parliament gave initial approval to a proposal to impose the death penalty on Palestinians convicted in deadly attacks. A top minister in Israel's far-right government, meanwhile, called for "erasing" a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank where radical Jewish settlers went on a rampage earlier this week.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that three Palestinians were also wounded in the raid in the Aqabat Jaber camp.
Israeli leaders said the men arrested were suspected in the killing of Elan Ganeles, a 27-year-old Israeli-American who was fatally shot while driving on a West Bank highway near the refugee camp on Monday. Ganeles, of West Hartford, Conn., lived in the United States and was visiting Israel for a wedding, friends said.
The Israeli military said it received intelligence about the whereabouts of the suspects and encircled the house. Security camera footage shared on Twitter by an Israeli lawmaker appeared to show a squad of Israeli special forces exiting an unmarked white van ahead of the arrests.
The raid coincided with Ganeles's funeral in the central Israeli city of Raanana.
The military said that one suspect was shot fleeing the scene and died on the way to the hospital, and three others were arrested. The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the man as 22-year-old Mahmoud Hamdan.
Netanyahu praised the arrests. "Whoever tries to harm us will pay," he said.
Information for this article was contributed by Isabel Debre and Ilan Ben Zion of The Associated Press.
Israeli paramilitary Border Police face off with an Israeli protesting against plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new government to overhaul the judicial system, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, March 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Israeli forces take up positions during clashes with Palestinians after a raid at the entrance to Aqabat Jaber refugee camp near the West Bank city of Jericho on Wednesday. (AP/Mahmoud Illean)
Mounted Israeli police work to disperse demonstrators blocking a highway Wednesday in Tel Aviv during a “national disruption day.” After weeks of protests across Israel against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul Israel’s judicial system, the confrontations turned violent for the first time. More photos at arkansasonline.com/32telaviv/. (AP/Oded Balilty)Gallery: Mass protests in Israel turn violent
