On video: huge demonstrations across the country, tens of thousands blocked Ayalon roads/photo: Yotam Ronen, News 13
The dramatic announcement came out during the week of raising a gear in protest against the legal revolution.
The protest leaders were at the time in a conference call on the next steps.
The regular protesters were after a day of disruption and Shabbat in Kaplan, which were larger than ever, the occasional ones were debating at home whether to join the continuation of the scheduled schedule. Towards 9:00 p.m. in the evening, everyone received the news together: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Galant after the latter warned against The continuation of the promotion of the legislation.
The hundreds of thousands who demonstrated for months against the government did not imagine that a moment would come when they took to the streets in defense of the Likud man. He himself was the address of demonstrations for a long period of time. But it happened, and became perhaps the most defining night of the protest.
Lil Galant events/Uri Sela, Uri Sela
Defense Minister Yoav Galant/Ministry of Defense, Ariel Harmoni
It didn't take half an hour after the news until the messages started flooding all WhatsApp and Telegram groups calling for an emergency call to report to Kaplan.
The organizers of the protest deliberated for a few more minutes - and decided to make the call official.
"Tonight at 22:00 there will be a demonstration on Kaplan Street in front of the Kariya," they wrote and gave the signal for the start of the riot.
Noam Spira met that evening with a friend at her home.
The two watched the events unfold on television in real time.
"It was clear to us that we were leaving the house," she recalls.
"We were the very first, at 21:30 we were already in Kaplan. There were the most young people I've ever seen at a demonstration, everywhere we looked. The last ones stayed until 4-5 in the morning."
The crowds, tens of thousands, crowded Ayalon in never-ending swarms.
South first, North immediately after.
A bonfire was lit, followed by another.
The protestors surrounded the fire by singing "Sura Chasoch" and drumming, with exploding rage and a tremendous sense of competence that intensified with every other major player in the country joining, who gave his back to the protest.
After less than an hour, the rumor began to spread that Histadrut Chairman Arnon Bar David would announce a strike in the morning. They felt that the battle was over.
The demonstration in Ayalon lanes on the night of the dismissal of Galant/Flash 90, Tomer Neuberg
The demonstration in Ayalon lanes on the night of the dismissal of Galant/Flash 90, Tomer Neuberg
"Today I feel that for the first time the rules are really being broken," said two participants in the demonstration who spoke to Walla!.
"Netanyahu decided to break the rules in front of us, he is playing chicken and said that we are not interested in all the preparations of the security forces for the army to disband following the revolution, and we are going to the end."
Throughout the night, one of the country's busiest roads was shut down.
Instead of cars, scooters and bicycles and dogs leashed to their owners appeared.
They too could not miss the historic event.
Omri and Adam, 17 and 18 years old, returned home from spending time together at about the same point in time.
"My father told me: 'Look at the demonstrations.' Amri called me and said that his father told him exactly the same thing," they said at the time.
Late at night, while leaning on the concrete railing.
"My children will ask me if I was at the demonstrations and I will tell them no? Now I can tell them yes. I have a test in citizenship and computer science tomorrow but that is more important than the test. We will be here until morning."
In the morning, the shopping centers remained closed, the Electric Company and the National Insurance Company operated in a reduced format, and everyone waited for the 11:00 hour, for the press conference of Bar David and the top officials of the economy.
When they officially declared that they would shut down the country without stopping the legislation, and had the backing of the local government center, Netanyahu realized that the game was over.
Gallant won't be fired, and the legislation won't move forward at least for a while.
At 20:00 Netanyahu made it official and announced: the legislation is frozen.
Netanyahu announces the suspension of legal legislation
Netanyahu: Out of national responsibility, I decided to suspend the legislation in order to reach a broad consensus
"It was the evening that the muscle of activism and non-violent civil disobedience developed the most when we realized that non-violent actions could be taken that would change the agenda," Spira explained.
The next day she already established with the same company the youth protest organization "A.R."
"The morning after, we received messages in all the groups about victory. But that was the bottom line - if it becomes necessary to oppose the dictatorship in this way, there is no victory, but a call for help and an exposure of how quickly the situation can deteriorate. We realized that we needed to understand more and started organizing an evening series of lectures from politicians and other figures , a discourse on politics, history, legal processes. Lil Gallant took the protest a step further."
Roy Neuman, one of the leaders of the protest, remembers that night.
"I was on the line with Nadav (Galon - AS).
We continued the conversation for half a minute after we saw the message.
I didn't understand what he was saying at all.
Then I see all the occupiers and understand - within half a minute we drafted a message of 'everyone to Kaplan,'" he says. "I remember having the feeling that the state had lost control.
Even the police took a step back and allowed us to block.
It was the first time that everyone understood what a dictatorship looked like.
Everything we talked about for three months suddenly came true.
There was euphoria that the country was being taken back.
That there was no return from this event."
The demonstration in Nativite Ayalon on the night of the dismissal of Galant/Flash 90, Avshalom Sashoni
Mixing the messages of then and now
That was only a year ago, and already seems like a distant memory.
Far and insignificant compared to what came after it.
The October 7th shake-up pushed aside any protest that was not about the war and the abductees.
The militancy was diverted to the Gaza Strip, the chants of H-M-W-K-R-T-Y-H were stopped in MMD. Only about two months ago, and every week more and more, the protest returned to remind us of what it was.
The dimensions are still different. Thousands, without the tens before them. Neuman has also taken a step back, at least for the near future. His place, that of his partner in Labror, Nadav Galon, and the most prominent protest leader, Kema Bresler, are so far filled by other figures among Kaplan's leaders, such as Moshe Redman and Ami Dror, whose names were still less known during the Galant storm.
Last Saturday Dror Dror led a "running group" to Ayalon. In bright sports clothes, gym shoes and backpacks, dozens of athletes gathered together for a meeting to try to return Ayalon to the sovereignty of the protesters. Once they succeeded before the protest, a second time they were blocked by the police after it, and a third time, immediately after, Join hundreds of others for a joint blockade near the Arlozorov Interchange.
The morning after the night of Gallant's dismissal in Nativite Ayalon/Flash 90, Avshalom Sashoni
The statement that motivated the night of the protest: Gallant warns against promoting the legal revolution
In the video: Gallant called for the legislation to be stopped: "There is an immediate danger to the security of the state"/Photo: Spokesperson of the Ministry of Defense
On Ayalon's asphalt, the messages of then and now were mixed.
Harsh shouts to oust Netanyahu alternate with demands for a deal to return the abductees, "now" and back.
The demonstrators are still hesitant to frame the protest only around the government, hundreds of meters from which the headquarters of the kidnapped families is trying to get its own audience.
There were organizations that joined only recently, and even among their ranks there are those who feel that the time has not yet come.
"This time I was not one of the first to join the demonstrations," admits Spira.
"My brother serves in Givati and it caught me with ambivalent feelings."
She herself wrestles with the question of separating and prioritizing the messages.
"We reached October 7 because of the behavior of a despicable government. The victims of that day are the people who are now calling for different priorities and behavior, and I hope for a different government. These are the people who should lead it. The goal is to create pressure to bring everyone back now, and together with him joins A message against the government that incites and creates rifts in the nation. We prioritize the abductees, but there is no agreement with the overall situation in the country."
"A direct line is drawn between Lil Galant and October 7," Neumann clarifies.
"The heads of the army warned and Netanyahu did not agree to listen, did not agree to a cabinet meeting regarding the dangers. Gallant was fired after saying that he saw a real danger to Israel's security. He was fired for warning. There will be a stage when the Israeli public will rise to its feet and expel the government that is responsible for this."
More on the same topic:
Yoav Galant
The legal revolution
Ayalon routes
demonstrations
Benjamin Netanyahu
Gaza war
War of Iron Swords