At least a thousand protesters converged on a hair salon at Kikar Hamedina on Wednesday evening, after learning that Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was having her hair done there.
The protesters, who had been demonstrating against the government's planned judicial reforms nearby, blocked the entrance to the hair salon and screamed at the security guards protecting the prime minister's wife.
"The country is burning and Sara is getting a haircut," they shouted.
Hundreds of police officers were called to the scene to safely extract Mrs. Netanyahu from the premises and were able to do so only after almost two hours of efforts.
Prime Minister Netanyahu said in response to the incident: "The anarchical activists led by Lapid continue to cross red lines. Right now they are harassing and threatening my wife in Tel Aviv. I call on Lapid and the opposition to stop this immediately and condemn this shameful and unprecedented act."
Opposition leader Yair Lapid tweeted, "I call on the protesters in Kikar Hamedina to allow Sara Netanyahu to leave and go home. Your fight and ours is against the regime coup and the destruction of democracy."
Before the Prime Minister's wife was escorted from the hair salon, National Unity Party chairman Benny Gantz also called on the protesters to leave.
"I call on the protesters in Kikar Hamedina: Let the Prime Minister's wife return home, and continue to wave your flags," he said. "We will continue to act together, in a variety of legal ways, to stop the coup d'état."
Deputy Finance Minister MK Michal Woldiger (Religious Zionist party) also responded to the incident, stating, "What the anarchists from the left are doing to Mrs. Sara Netanyahu is one big disgrace. You have no respect, you have no boundaries. How utterly shameful."
Justice Minister Yariv Levin said, "The siege on the Prime Minister's wife, Mrs. Sara Netanyahu, is insane and unprecedented. Those who thought that anarchy would stop with roadblocks and jumping on tables in the Knesset discovered tonight that when violence and disturbances are permitted, things don't stop there. It is time to apply the rule of law to those who speak in the name of the rule of law while trampling on the law and on the individual rights of anyone who does not think like them."