Hundreds defy lockdown as they name for Netanyahu to resign | Center East

The protest, now in its 15th week, continues to put pressure on the prime minister to stop over alleged corruption and his handling of pandemics.

Thousands of Israelis have protested across the country for the 15th consecutive year breaking a new law designed to contain anti-government demonstrations during a coronavirus lockdown.

Street protests on Saturday and Sunday, just three days after parliament passed an edict to limit the scale of such demonstrations, put Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu under pressure to step down over dealing with the coronavirus crisis and denying corruption allegations.

Netanyahu will be tried for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. He has denied wrongdoing.

Israeli law does not force a prime minister to resign after being charged, sparking outrage and protests at a time when the country is also grappling with the pandemic.

The new law bans Israelis from holding demonstrations more than a kilometer from their homes and enforces stricter social distancing, a measure the government said was aimed at containing COVID-19 infections.

Critics have called it a blow to freedom of expression.

Most of the protests on Saturday evening and well into Sunday were small and scattered across the country, although thousands of people gathered in Tel Aviv.

A small number of protesters fought with the police and tried to block the city streets.

According to reports, between 15 and 20 people have been arrested by the police.

Israel has closed much of its economy and ordered people to stay a mile from their homes if possible in order to contain a surge in coronavirus infections in the second wave.

As of Sunday, Israel had more than 264,000 infections, of which more than 191,000 have recovered, while the death toll has reached nearly 1,700 for a population of nine million.

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