An estimated 50,000 people attended a rally in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, marking the 21st anniversary of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's assassination.

The event was organised by the Zionist Union party at the last moment after it transpired that there were no funds for the annual rally.

Party leader Yitzhak Herzog said at the rally that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's failure to respond to social crises and criticism of the IDF meant "the chapter of talking is over. The chapter of a unity government is over." Mr Herzog was acknowledging he had been talking to the prime minister about entering a unity government, but that these discussions have not resulted in any agreement.

The Zionist Union invited the leaders of other centrist and left-wing parties to speak at the rally. But while Zehava Galon, leader of Meretz, spoke from the podium, Kulanu leader and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid both declined. It neither wanted to be associated with what may have seemed to many Israelis as a left-wing event.