On Monday, hundreds of vehicles flooded the main highway from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to congregate in parliament to protest COVID mandates and restrictions, as inspired by the recent movement in Canada. Other protests took to an overpass and junction where they watched as vehicles with Israeli and Canadian flags drove by.
One sign read "Freedom doesn't look like this," with an image of a girl wearing a mask, Reuters reported. Meanwhile, protesters sounded horns and beat drums outside parliament as they campaigned for the end of pandemic restrictions.
"We are all gathered here for freedom. Because for two years already, all this world is going mad because of all the mandates and all the things that don't let us live as free as we are born," a protester by the name of Jonathan Deporto, who is 39 years old, told the outlet.
Israel has already loosened restrictions in the last few weeks, rolling back requirements to show vaccination certificates at public places such as restaurants, cinemas, gyms and hotels. This coincided with the nation's decline in daily infections from the highly contagious Omicron variant of COVID.
However, masks remain mandatory in public indoor places such as schools, shops, and medical facilities.
Not the Bee reported that a similar protest occurred in Naples, Italy, where "a convoy of hundreds of heavy tourist vehicles" came together to "protest against the Mario Draghi government." These protests were inspired by the Freedom Convoy in Canada, where at the end of January, truckers came down to Ottawa at Parliament Hill to protest COVID mandates.
According to NDTV, Canadian police on Wednesday issued a stern warning against the Freedom Convoy protesters who have blocked off major highways connecting the U.S. and Canada for nearly two weeks.
Police said protesters must disperse or will be arrested, fined, or have their trucks seized. Meanwhile, federal authorities "negotiated a peaceful end to the last of several recent blockades by protesters" on the border crossing of Canada and the U.S.
But protesting truckers remain undeterred in the parliamentary precinct, where they continued to gather despite an extension of a court order that was issued on Wednesday ordering them to disperse after a noise complaint by residents.
Sixty-five year old trucker David Shaw said, "We're still a lot of trucks holding the line," despite the threat of being arrested. He added, "I'll keep coming back."
Meanwhile, 42-year old Jan Grouin denounced Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's decision to call a state of emergency, saying the Canadian leader was "a little overreacting maybe to think that we are terrorists."
Freedom Convoy organizers also declared that they will hold the line at Parliament Hill, The Epoch Times reported. Organizer Tamara Lich said on Monday, "We will remain peaceful, but planted on Parliament Hill until the mandates are decisively ended."
Lich explained that there are various reasons for the protest, not simply just COVID mandates. She explained, "Some of us have been mistreated by our government, including many of our indigenous communities, who have personally experienced medical malpractice. Some of us simply want bodily autonomy and oppose the mandates on principled grounds."
Lich concluded, "No matter our reasons and opinions, it is how the government responds to its citizens that determines the fate of the country."
