The Tel Aviv municipality began early this morning clearing empty tents on Rothschild and Nordau Boulevards, in what seems to be the beginning of the end of the famous tent boulevard of the last two months. Drug addicts reportedly attacked Tel Aviv municipality workers with sticks on Rothschild Boulevard.
Yisrael Sakal, one of the Nordau Boulevard encampment residents, told “IDF Radio" (Galei Zahal), "At 5:30 this morning, three Tel Aviv municipality trucks arrived and began taking apart tents on the edge of the encampment. They had no warrant and they came like thieves in the night and took it all to Hiria (garbage center). We used our bodies to stop the third truck, and unloaded everything from the truck."
Were the tents full of peoples' possessions?
"The tents that were taken were lived in some of the time, but were all full of personal belongings. I don't understand how this is possible after the municipality yesterday hung up flyers with pretty flowers saying that they support the protest."
The municipality claims that it only took empty tents in an effort to clean up the boulevard.
"Even tents that had valuable personal possessions in them were cleared away. At 4:30 pm we will hold a protest in front of the municipality building.
The municipality claims that this protest has fulfilled its aims.
"We decided ourselves at the beginning of the week to halve the size of the encampment, but now we plan on having a nationwide conference at the Kibbutz seminar center to plan the next stage of the protest."
At this point, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai joined the conversation: "The tents as a form of protest have realized their aims. There is a need to clean the streets and return them to their previous condition. We have rats and other problems, and we have received many complaints from residents. This was not a unilateral move: there was no promise of an agreed-upon removal date, and we are keeping our city clean just as every city should. Public areas should not be taken over in this way."
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