(haipo) – Freedom of protest: Protest organizers report a surprising announcement they received from the Haifa Municipality about the cancellation of the ongoing permit for demonstrations in Horev. The municipality's announcement was not accompanied by any explanation, but it was learned that the background was complaints from many residents about the noise in the heart of a residential neighborhood, as well as the problem of reaching Carmel Hospital during the blockades of the main highway - the Ridge Highway.
The Haifa Municipality responded:
The Haifa Municipality is not preventing the holding of the 'People's Protest' demonstrations, and will not prevent them in the future. Every week, protest leaders contact the municipality to receive permission for the demonstration, and permission is granted. In the conversation that took place, they were informed that the municipality will work to find a new site for the demonstration. In the coming days, representatives of the Haifa Municipality will meet with protest leaders in order to coordinate a new central location for the demonstrations to continue.
Message from Gali Eshet, one of the protest organizers:
Yesterday we received a scandalous announcement from the Haifa Municipality that the municipality will no longer approve demonstrations at Horev Junction on Saturday nights, starting next Saturday night, 12/13/25.
The announcement was not accompanied by any reasoning, explanation, or clarification – nor was there any joint dialogue on the subject with the protest leaders. This is a serious violation of freedom of expression and freedom of protest.
The Haifa People's Protest announces clearly and unequivocally: The demonstrations at Horev Junction - and everywhere else in the city's public space - will continue as long as the government of massacre, neglect, and coup d'état is in power.
Violent elements on the far right are taking terrible steps against the municipality – and instead of clearly standing on the side of the law and the principles of liberal democracy – the municipality is choosing to cower and align itself with the dictatorship.
Demonstrations and political protests are by nature public events and therefore must take place in the public space – in a prominent and accessible place.
Furthermore, freedom of expression and freedom of protest are fundamental rights protected by law, and a local authority does not have the authority to cancel a legitimate political protest in the public space.
Yona Yahav, you were elected mayor on the basis of your commitment to defend a free, liberal and democratic Haifa – and this is a testing time. Even so, freedom of protest in the city was harmed during the war, and the Haifa public will not accept further harm, nor will there be an attempt to push the justified popular protest to a marginal and negligible place.
It's not too late to change.
We call on the Haifa Municipality to immediately retract its announcement, and we expect to see the city council members elected to defend liberal democracy in the city, attend the upcoming demonstrations.
Democracy allows for a variety of opinions and values, including that of liberal democracy, which is a small shade within the rich and diverse mosaic of values that the human spirit has to offer.
Today's youth demand a wealth of values, more than liberal democracy alone can provide. Liberal democracy also has a place within the free spirit of man.
Delegitimization for right-wing views also has a place, but not just a place but a price. If there is no concrete and respectful reference to the right-wing views themselves and no deep and respectful ideological confrontation with them on their own part, we will see here the development of right-wing ideological youth who feed their souls and also find a place for the liberal niche, and nostalgia for what was once a left-wing ideology and will become only slogans, despair, memory and history. It will be good
I didn't understand what the problem was with moving the demonstration to refineries. They belong there. Free us from the pollutants. Return them to the refineries.
Haifa is a radical left-wing city, see the entry D.B.G. Street. A city with educational institutions. It will not be useful for people with empty minds. Who seek hatred and lick each other.
You brought the Likud upon us for at least another 4 years.
The demonstration can be held at the abandoned Kiryat Haim Stadium. A crowd will arrive, sit in the stands, and cheer on the procession, without disturbing any residents.
Leave Kiryat Haim in peace. It's not Haifa's dump. Continue to enjoy them.
Kudos to the Haifa Municipality for finally listening to its citizens and no longer approving the anarchy in the center of the Carmel. The dismissive response of that protest organizer indicates that her concern is anarchy and not any leftist issue that changes with the wind. No one is stopping her from demonstrating and no one is gagging her - let her go demonstrate in the container areas at the port or in the Dado Beach parking lot.
Seals, used to block roads.
People who live nearby are suffering because of you, but you protesters don't care. The main thing is that you've made a mistake to brush your conscience, you hypocrites.
I live near the center of Horev. These protests are a nightmare for the residents in the area. Traffic is blocked every Saturday night. There have been no buses on Saturday night for 3 years. Enough! The screams and beeps of the protesters are also very disturbing.
You will lose the next election and live and suffer.
We'll meet at the ballot box, delusional leftists.
You will lose and by and large you will be in opposition for another 2000 years.
I don't expect anything good from the city of Haifa, unfortunately.
My family and friends live near the Horev center. We are several families who live hundreds of meters apart on different sides of the center (Horev). In order to reach each other (for meals, to take friends, to drive to the hospital) we have to go around Nosh or drive through other neighborhoods, late for events, get stuck in traffic, and life has become a continuous nightmare.
We are fed up if Haifa remains with these demonstrations, our place is not in Haifa. From our perspective, we will not continue this nightmare. We will move to a more pleasant city.
Those who want to demonstrate can demonstrate, but not at the expense of the quality of life of other residents.
That decision-makers take into account the consequences of continuing the protests. Period.
The continuation of the snobbery of Yona Yahav, who seemed particularly ridiculous in his lukewarm response to the scathing article written about him in Haaretz, and rightly so.
The center of Horev is a commercial area. Businesses in its vicinity are closed due to the MTCSH. The number of residents living there and suffering from the noise of the demonstration, which lasts about an hour, is minimal to nonexistent. This is a central thoroughfare with noise from cars and buses 24/7.
It's a bit strange that they suddenly called out after 3 years about blocking access to Carmel Hospital. These are peaceful, law-abiding protesters who are not preventing ambulances from passing. Are there any statistics on harm to public health?
Practical suggestion: Possible in the maternity ward – a central location that does not prevent access to the hospital.
It won't help you now, you've failed.
For a decade, you have failed to overthrow a legally elected government, starting with the black flag protests and ending with the hostages that Netanyahu and Trump eventually returned, thanks to the military of the IDF and our heroic fighters.
Entering an election year, try voting.
Now, according to the polls on left-wing channels, you have the possibility of forming a government, and even that only by joining forces with Israel-haters and Palestinian supporters from the Joint List.
We live near the center of Horev. These protests are a nightmare for the residents in the area. Traffic is blocked every Saturday night. There have been no buses on Saturday night for 3 years. Enough! The screams and whistles of the protesters are also very disturbing.
They're going to die soon, poor people. What's left for them? The children, if any, don't come to visit. They're busy. And there's no more strength to travel the world. So we'll protest. The main thing is that whoever organizes the protests makes a lot of money on them. Check with the registry of associations.
Finally, this protest has become purely political. There are no hostages, and the protest will not return the one space left, just as it did not return the rest. Only the IDF and the US led to this.
Now it's a battle of an elite that is losing control.
The public is tired of their disruptive behavior. Since they lost the elections they have been trying to block roads. Will they learn that we live in a democracy and that the will of the majority must be respected? I doubt it.
Only the constant and impressive protest from north to south convinced Trump of the necessity of returning the kidnapped. Concern for the fate of the kidnapped crosses sectors, but the poison machine, out of understandable self-interest, painted it in political colors. And by the way – also a legitimate “political” protest. The government was elected legally, but not on an agenda of crushing the justice system and the free media, and certainly not with the support of voters to “contain” and feed Hamas.
Did protests convince Trump of the need to return the hostages?
How much water do you have to drink to reach this level of naivety?
Perhaps the protests increased the price Netanyahu, the state, and the army were forced to pay for their return and the prolongation of the fighting, not to mention the price in the lives of the fighters?
Not to mention the protests even before 10/7 that may have led the enemy to believe that the amount of refusal and division in the country was enough to defeat Israel militarily? And let's hope that the investigation committee will not overlook any media outlet and will thoroughly investigate who incited them for months to go out to demonstrate for a variety of fabricated reasons and who was behind them?
It seems that they are now in some media outlets campaigning about a commission of inquiry, perhaps to deflect blame, perhaps because attack is always the best defense?
Kudos to the Haifa Municipality, which has been mindful of the suffering of the area's residents for 3 years. Both in terms of the noise and hustle and bustle and in terms of the "house arrests" of residents along the axis. As well as the impossible and extremely difficult access to the hospital.
Certainly freedom of protest - but without harassment, disruption, and risk to the residents of the area.
They also replaced it with a place that does not interfere with the reasonable life of the residents of the area.
The median age of the protesters is 65, a group of bored retirees looking for a reason to get out of the house to get some adrenaline and flavor to their fat and boring lives.
As a young woman who went there a few times in the beginning, you are right about every word.
It's really their holiday 😂