Videos have begun to circulate online showing the moment a vehicle plowed into a crowd of protesters in Israel.
The incident took place around 9 p.m. local time near the Israeli city of Kfar Saba, located roughly 24 kilometers north of Tel Aviv. Protesters were gathered in the area, as they have been all throughout the country, in opposition to a controversial set of sweeping judicial overhauls passed by the Israeli parliament on Monday.
As can be seen in videos being shared on social media, the car, which appeared to have been a beige van, pulled out from behind a larger construction vehicle and plowed through a crowd of protesters waving Israeli flags. Haaretz, a newspaper based in Israel, reported that three individuals were “lightly injured” by the incident.
The vehicle also appeared to drive through a fire that was set in the road near the gathered crowd, carrying flames and sparks down the road as it drove away.
Demonstrators add tree branches to a bonfire as they block a highway during a protest rally against the Israeli government’s judicial reform plan in Tel Aviv on Monday. Videos have begun to circulate online showing the moment a vehicle plowed into a crowd of protesters in Israel.
Jack Guez/AFP/Getty
Police also told Haaretz that a suspect has been arrested, whom they described as a young man in his 20s. The suspect was also described as a “West Bank settler” by journalist Noga Tarnopolsky, who shared a clip of the chaotic incident to Twitter on Monday afternoon.
“The car just zoomed toward us,” one witness told Haaretz. “I saw several people on the ground and him running away.”
Another witness told the paper that the suspect “didn’t stop for a moment.”
Newsweek reached out to the Israeli Police via email for comment.
💥A West Bank settler has been arrested for attempting to ram protesters on Route 531. Three wounded. pic.twitter.com/W3CHCaDDOE
— Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي💙 (@NTarnopolsky) July 24, 2023
As of 10 p.m. local time in Israel, Haaretz reported that Israeli police had arrested at least 34 protesters throughout the country. In some cities, like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, water cannons were deployed against crowds by law enforcement. The newspaper also reported that “hundreds” of the country’s military reservists had declined to report for duty when called.
The reforms, spearheaded by long-serving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have aimed to curb the authority of the country’s Supreme Court, in particular its ability to strike down pieces of legislation. Netanyahu and his supporters have said that the reforms are necessary, as they see the court’s power as having grown too broad.
However, critics have countered fiercely, saying that the reforms are an attempt to remove the Israeli judiciary as “one of the three powers of state,” as Tarnopolsky wrote for Rolling Stone earlier this year, and a potential threat to Israeli democracy.
In addition, Ehud Barak, a former Israeli Prime Minister, decried the reforms as “the assassination of the Declaration of Independence, which will turn Israel into a dictatorship,” CNBC reported in March.
Update 7/24/2023, 5:55 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.
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