Kaplan Force (Hebrew: כוח קפלן) is a liberal umbrella organization based in Israel, that is carrying out protests actions against Netanyahu's government. Kaplan Force defines themselves as a civil force of a number of liberal protest organizations in Israel. They've demonstrated at the 2023 Israeli judicial reform protests and now demonstrating at 2024 Israeli protests.[1] [2] [3] Kaplan Force is named after Kaplan Street which is where anti-government protests usually take place.
Kaplan Force began their activities on June 25, 2023. The members of the organization announced "targeted actions against the laws of the dictatorship", referring to 2023 Israeli judicial reform. At those moments, at the 25th demonstration, the members of the organization announced a blockade of several main highways in Israel, and a "siege" on Ben Gurion Airport, aiming to disrupt Israeli flight activity.[4]
Supporters of Netanyahu's government strongly opposed the organization, saying it was "Anarchistic".[5]
On 3 July 2023, they were successful at blocking main highways, including Highway 1, Highway 20, and were successful at distrupting Ben Gurion Airport terminals.
On the night of July 5, 2023, Ami Eshed, chief of the Tel Aviv District Police, announced his resignation. Kaplan Force have said in response that he "was fired on political grounds by Ben Gvir, because he refused to break the protesters' bones". Later on that night, spontaneous demonstrations began in 40 different locations throughout Israel and Ayalon was blocked in both directions.[6] [7] Dozens were arrested and at least 3 were injured.
On July 27, 2023, After the government passed the "unreasonableness laws", Kaplan Force announced that "the protests are moving from defending - to attacking". they also they would do things "that have not been done until now".[8]