Handling of Coronavirus crisis: Calls grow in Israel for Netanyahu to go

"We won't leave until Bibi leaves." Israel's struggle to contain the coronavirus has stirred deep-seated resentment towards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and protests demanding his resignation are growing by the week.

Some demonstrators branded Netanyahu -- who has been indicted with bribery, fraud and breach of trust -- as corrupt, while others condemned a lack of coherence in the government's response to the pandemic.

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For Tamir Gay-Tsabary, who travels each day to the Jerusalem protests with his wife Tami from southern Israel, coronavirus was "a trigger" that brought renewed focus to Netanyahu's leadership faults.

The pandemic made people "understand that he doesn't care (about) Israel, he just cares for himself," the 56-year-old sales manager told AFP.

Netanyahu won praise for his initial response to the virus.

His government's quick decisions in March to curb travel and impose a lockdown brought the daily case-count to a trickle by early May.

But an economic re-opening that began in late April has led to an explosion in transmission in the country of about 9 million people, with daily COVID-19 tallies ranging between 1,000 and 2,000 cases in recent weeks.

Anti-government protests that initially included a few hundred people in Tel Aviv, now regularly count several thousand there and in Jerusalem.

Reflecting on the movement, Einav Schiff of the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said it began in response to "a premature victory celebration for having defeated the coronavirus".

That false victory "morphed into a healthcare and economic failure, which has left a severe crisis of confidence between the public and the government in its wake," he said.

In response to rising cases, Netanyahu's centre-right coalition has re-imposed economically painful restrictions, including targeting shops and markets. It has also approved additional relief measures, notably cash deposits to all citizens.

Protester Amit Finkerstin said accused the government of giving everyone cash "just to shut our mouth up."

Netanyahu has taken responsibility for re-opening the economy too soon, but said he was seeking a tricky balance between protecting livelihoods and limiting viral transmission, a challenge faced by many leaders. But he has also sought to undermine the protests as a product of the "anarchist left" and accused the media of exaggerating their size.