Mass arrests: 116 people arrested at protests for a hostage release deal

116 people have been arrested at protests calling to bring the hostages home since Sunday, according to data from protest legal support organization - Legal Aid for Protesters.

The deaths of hostages Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi, Alexander Lobanov, and Ori Danino, murdered over a week ago before IDF forces reached them, sparked massive protests and a general strike last week.

Sunday and Monday, which saw some of the largest protests over the course of the week, also had the most arrests. Some 45 people were arrested on Sunday and 40 were arrested Monday. 

Protests for the hostages on those days included the blocking of the entrance to Jerusalem and highways around the country. In Tel Aviv, Sunday saw one of the largest crowds seen at a protest in recent history, with organizers saying that 300,000 people gathered outside the Kirya IDF headquarters. 

Despite huge crowds gathering Saturday night after a long week of protests, with organizations saying that hundreds of thousands were in the streets, only eight arrests were made - all of them in Tel Aviv.

Unsurprisingly, given that many of the largest protests took place in Tel Aviv and that protest organizations focused much of their efforts on protests there, that's where the majority of the arrests this week took place, with 75 arrests made there since Sunday, with Sunday and Monday seeing the most arrests. Jerusalem was the second runner up, with 25 arrests made in the city, the majority of them also on Sunday and Monday. 

Some 13 arrests were made in the north, two in the south, and one in the center outside of Tel Aviv. 

Nearly 2,000 arrests of protesters since the start of the year

Since the beggining of the year, there have been around 1,700 arrests made of protesters, the Legal Aid for Protesters said.

While there may be more indictments and plea bargains in the works, thus far, there have been 13 indictments and nine plea bargains, said the organization, saying they believe this shows that police are making many pointless arrests. 

The organization also pointed to the fact that the majority of the indictments were issued by the police and not by the state's prosecution. 

Police have been widely criticized for their handling of protests and have been accused of excessive violence against protesters, as well as unjustified arrests. 

At a Saturday protest in Haifa, police threw two protesters into barbed wire, leading to their injury, said protest organizations. 

"Police violence in breaking its own records," said Bonot Alternativa (Women Building an Alternative) protests organization head Moran Zer Katzenstein.

"Bonot Alternativa activists were spoken to in a threatening manner, a young woman was arrested and disappeared, and the officers in the field have lost all restraint." 

The Police Investigation Department began investigating Sunday the injury of a family member of hostage Matan Zangauker, who was run over by a mounted police officer while protesting to bring him home. 

The Knesset National Security Committee met in May to discuss police violence at protests, especially in the jurisdiction of the Hadera station.

Israel Police responded to the allegations 

"In contrast to the claims made, Haifa station police officers were deployed in greater numbers last night to ensure the safety of the protesters and to support the protest as agreed upon in preliminary meetings with the organizers," stated an Israel Police spokesperson.

"Nevertheless, a group of protesters chose to break away from the main demonstration, reached a central road used as an evacuation route for rescue forces, and began disrupting order by throwing barbed wire fences onto the road, blocking traffic, and confronting the police. We will continue to uphold the right to protest according to the law, but we will not tolerate disturbances, attacks on police officers, or any criminal acts," the statement concluded.