Anger in Tel Aviv as light rail only runs 43 minutes on Jewish Sabbath

The new light rail system in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv will run for only 43 minutes on Saturdays due to Shabbat, the Jewish holy day, officials announced just days before its launch.

The public transport system, which launches on Friday, will cover the Tel Aviv metropolitan area but due to religious sensitivities, the red line will have a reduced service on Saturdays.

Trains will start in the city of Petah Tikva, east of Tel Aviv, at 9:30 pm and end 43 minutes later at 10:13 pm, according to Haaretz. 

The rail system will cover 90 km through 14 cities and serve 228 million customers per year, but many secular Israelis are unhappy with the limitations of the service in Tel Aviv on the Shabbat.

Tel Aviv is probably Israel's most socially liberal city, and many people see the restrictions as symptomatic of the growing influence of the religious right.

"In Gush Dan [Tel Aviv's metropolitan area] the population is secular, and the public anger over closing the light rail on Saturday is significant," activist Naor Narkis, founder of Yisrael Neora, told Haaretz.

"This is the largest transportation project passing through a clearly secular area, and we cannot remain silent in the face of it being closed 21 percent of the time."

Due to religious holidays, Narkis believes that trams will not run for 77 days in 2024 which has led to disappointment among Tel Aviv residents about its long-anticipated launch with protests expected.

Transport Minister Miri Regev was told he was "unwelcome" when he visited the port city of Jaffa, which was annexed to Tel Aviv in 1950, on Wednesday with threats by activists to block train traffic.

"We are a million residents of Bat Yam, Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan and Petah Tikva and we've waited seven years [for the light rail,]" one protest group told Regev, according to Haaretz.

"But taking the train out of commission won't take even one vehicle off the road, and we will keep standing still in traffic jams and not receive a basic service that exists in other democracies. If we don't have a light rail on Saturdays, you will have a rough Saturday too."

Israel has witnessed months of protests against a planned judicial overhaul with Tel Aviv an epicentre for the anti-government movement.

Activists believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government is looking to centralise authority via legal changes and have also bemoaned the growing power of the religious right.

Israel launched its first Saturday bus service in Tel Aviv only in 2019 and cannot charge customers in order not to break Jewish law.