Police have been Criticized for their use of water cannons on at the anti-Netanyahu protests, including allegedly firing the powerful jets from far closer range than is allowed by regulations. Last Saturday night, police fired a water cannon at anti-Netanyahu demonstrators at an approved protest at Balfour Street.
“Everyone says, ‘But there are protests at Balfour,’” Lapid said, referring to ongoing demonstrations against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on the Jerusalem street where his official residence is located, which have been cited as examples of gatherings that should also be banned. “I say, no problem. There are water cannons at Balfour? They should send the water cannons to these funerals and disperse them,” he said.
“Police cannot say ‘I won’t enforce the law.’ If police and the government had been resolute, they wouldn’t have held these funerals in the first place,” Lapid said.
Police have been criticized for failing to take any action against the mass Levayas that took place last week, while handing out many fines to people who weren’t in gatherings. In the case of the Levayas in Jerusalem, police told media outlets that dispersing the crowds would have caused “bloodshed.”
Last month saw violent clashes between police in Bnei Brak as protesters opposing lockdown regulations rioted in the city, including setting fire to a bus.
The Health Ministry’s data, based on averages of new cases over the last week, showed that 23 percent of new cases were from people who come from areas that are predominantly Charedi, even though just 12% of Israelis belong to the community.
