Police clashed with anti-government protesters Tuesday, and a number were arrested as they blocked roads leading to the Knesset building in Jerusalem ahead of the 2025 state budget vote.

The demonstrators were protesting the budget, which critics have accused of being disconnected from the reality of the country’s needs, while also calling for the government to reach a deal to bring back the 59 hostages still in Gaza. Others still were demanding that the police intensify their investigation into the disappearance of a missing Ethiopian-Israeli child.

Despite the protests, the budget passed its third and final reading necessary to become law, in a plenum vote of 66-52.

As Knesset members arrived ahead of the vote on Tuesday morning, a number of protesters attempted to block traffic by parking their cars in the middle of the road, while others blocked the sidewalk and were dragged off by police.

According to a law enforcement spokesman, cops who attempted to tow the vehicles blocking the road were met with resistance from the protesters.

Six people were arrested for “disturbing public order” and taken for questioning, the spokesman said.

A lawyers’ network representing detained anti-government protesters accused the police of using excessive force in the arrests, and said that they had unnecessarily torn the demonstrators’ clothing.

Footage posted on social media showed two protesters being removed from the bed of a tow truck, amid police efforts to clear the roads.

Police officers could be seen in the video forcibly pulling one of the protesters, identified in a post on X as Yaacov Godo, off the bed of the truck by his wrist. Godo’s son Tom Godo was killed by Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Kissufim in the early hours of October 8, 2023.

The second protester was handcuffed and carried off the truck by three cops — two holding him by each arm and the third holding his legs.

Also demonstrating........

© The Times of Israel