Last update - 00:00 09/05/2007
Striking students set to expand protest against education reforms
By Tamara Traubmann and Mijal Grinberg, Haaretz Correspondents
Striking students are set to expand their protest against the government's education reforms Thursday, with students from all over the country planning to unite in Jerusalem and march to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's home.
The students plan to set up camp in front of the prime minister's residence for an extended period of time.
Since the students rejected the government's latest offer Monday, negotiations have reached a standstill as the wave of protests continues.
On Wednesday, there were a number of rallies in Tel Aviv, Be'er Sheva and Jerusalem. In Tel Aviv, students carried out a protest at the Ramat Aviv mall. They entered in small groups as to not arouse suspicion and then donned red shirts and hung signs that read, "No education, no state."
In Jerusalem, students set up a protest tent at the Mount Scopus campus.
In Be'er Sheva, hundreds of students from Ben-Gurion University also erected a protest tent in front of government offices.
Two of the Be'er Sheva students have begun a hunger strike, a move which provoked some arguments among the protesters.
Some felt it was the right move, while others said that their main goal was to signal to the public that their struggle was a social one. These students spent the day renovating bomb shelters in a Be'er Sheva neigborhood.