[The] Police's Tel Aviv District commander told the organizers of an anti-war protest march scheduled for Saturday that the demonstration has been banned.

The commander, Maj. Gen. Haim Sargaroff, told organizers Friday that he has not approved the march "due to an excess of events," including the weekly protests calling for a cease-fire and hostage release deal in Tel Aviv's Hostage Square and another outside the eastern gates of the IDF's headquarters in the city.

On Thursday, police threatened to ban the protest unless organizers cut the number of participants in the march to 500, and not 5,000 as initially approved.

The protest, titled "Stop the war, stop the starvation," was planned by several left-wing organizations, Arab-Israeli political parties and the High Follow-up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel. The groups are currently holding consultations on whether to petition the High Court of Justice following the police decision.

Law enforcement previously tried to prevent anti-war protests in April. At the time, police informed organizers of a similar protest that they were forbidden from waving signs showing Israeli hostages, bearing the inscription "genocide," or showing photographs of children who were killed in Gaza.

Only after an inquiry from Haaretz did the police pull back their demands.

Police in other districts have taken a more rigid stance against the protests. In Haifa and in Jerusalem, for example, police seized anti-war placards from protesters, used force to disperse protesters and arrested participants.

In early August, an Israeli court forbade a demonstrator protesting against the government and against starvation in Gaza from participating in demonstrations for 30 days.

Police had arrested her during a demonstration at a traffic junction in southern Israel after she threw flour at police officers. Courts have mostly issued restraining orders against protest activists who were arrested for illegal demonstrations.

At the same time, they have stressed that freedom of protest is a constitutional right and have avoided outright banning any individual from joining protests. In one case, a judge in the Haifa Magistrate's Court asked anti-war protesters to explain why protest signs had been written in Arabic.