Hundreds of enraged Israelis converged on President Isaac Herzog’s private residence Sunday night, asserting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s shock petition for a presidential pardon marks a death blow to Israel’s so-called “democratic foundations.”

Waving signs reading “Pardon = Banana Republic” and stacking heaps of bananas outside the gates, protesters—some dressed in orange prison jumpsuits caricaturing a pleading Netanyahu—demanded Herzog reject what they called a shameless attempt to place the embattled leader above the law.

The demonstration exploded hours after Netanyahu, 76, submitted a 111-page plea seeking full clemency in his five-year corruption saga—three separate indictments involving bribery, fraud, and breach of trust—without admitting guilt or showing contrition.

Once defiant that he would never seek a pardon, Netanyahu now insists the protracted trial “tears the nation apart” and harms security amid multiple fronts of conflict.

Opposition leaders across the spectrum lined up in rare unity. “Only the guilty seek pardon,” declared Yair Golan, Democratic Party chairman and former deputy chief of staff of the military.

Yair Lapid insisted any mercy must require confession, remorse, and immediate political retirement. Benny Gantz accused Netanyahu of “arsonist extortion,” using the plea to divert attention from his coalition’s ultra-Orthodox draft-exemption bill and broader governance failures.

The domestic crisis collides with Netanyahu’s pariah status abroad. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for him and former War Minister Yoav Gallant over war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, where Israel’s two-year campaign has killed over 70,000 Palestinians—mostly women and children—and wounded 170,900, according to Gaza health authorities, with indirect deaths likely far higher.

The request, which Herzog’s office forwarded to the Justice Ministry for review, is complicated by explicit political interference from U.S. President Donald Trump, who has urged clemency and privately labeled the trial an “unjustified political prosecution.”

Critics warn that granting the plea—shielding Netanyahu from domestic corruption charges—would underscore a regime fixated on his personal legal survival rather than accountability for the humanitarian devastation in Gaza, even as he faces international indictment for war crimes by the ICC.