Tens of thousands of protesters waving Israeli flags and chanting slogans against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have rallied in Tel Aviv, demanding new elections and the return of hostages held in Gaza, AFP reports.

Large protests have occurred in the Israeli city on a weekly basis over Netanyahu’s handling of the nearly nine-month-old offensive in Gaza started by Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel.

Many protesters held signs reading “Crime Minister” and “Stop the War” as people poured into the biggest Israeli city’s main thoroughfare.

Anti-government protest organisation Hofshi Israel estimated more than 150,000 people attended the rally, calling it the biggest since the Gaza operation began.

Some demonstrators lay on the ground covered in red paint in the city’s Democracy Square to protest what they say is the death of the country’s democracy under Netanyahu. In an address to the crowd, a former head of Israel’s domestic Shin Bet security agency, Yuval Diskin, condemned Netanyahu as Israel’s “worst prime minister”.