TEL AVIV -- More than 10,000 Israelis marched in Tel Aviv and other cities over the weekend to protest against the government's austerity budget, which is expected to raise workers' income tax and Value-Added Tax (VAT).

The demonstrations called forth the comparison to mass cost-of-living protests of summer 2011, which swept the Jewish state and changed the public's discourse and awareness of socioeconomic matters.

In Saturday's protests, Israelis' ire was aimed at a budget proposal submitted by newly installed Finance Minister Yair Lapid last week and due for cabinet debate on Monday.

The budget contains tough austerity measures that threaten the middle and lower classes, including tax increases and cuts in stipends for families with multiple children and welfare, education and medical services.

"I don't see this as a re-enactment of those protests (in 2011) but rather a direct continuation of them," Alon Lee-Green, who was among the leaders of the social justice movement two years ago, told Xinhua.

"I think that summer was a breaking point for the Israeli people. It brought awareness to the fact that we're among one of the countries which is the priciest to live in but we don't get proper wages and services from the country," he added.

The awareness that Lee-Green is talking about has taken root in the Israeli society since 2011, when many protest groups emerged and fought to help poor people who were evicted from their state-funded apartments after failing to handle their debts.

Different groups also hosted lectures explaining to the public about the economy, their rights and possible ways of action.

"The public is much more aware now of what's going on around them," said Tamar Zandberg, a member from the left-wing Meretz party.

"It's a process; this doesn't happen overnight. But the past several years people have started to realize what's going on around them. It's a dynamic process. The public has smartened up," she said.

What differentiates Saturday's protest from the wave of 2011 is that Israelis felt cheated as they had thought that Lapid and his party members would battle such decrees and fight for the middle and lower classes.

"The social protest returned along with a new ingredient -- a deep sense of fraud and manipulation," Yossi Yona, a professor from the Ben Gurion University, wrote in a column published on the Walla news website.

Lapid, a surprise kingmaker in Israel's governing coalition formed after January's general election, took office on the coattails of the 2011 protest movement. He has said austerity measures are needed to boost the country's economy while cutting its deficit of 11 billion U.S. dollars.

"The last elections took place in light of the 2011 protests with major parties putting the social difficulties at the center of their platforms, committing themselves to fighting these injustices including the housing problem, the high costs of living ... and all of these promises have evaporated. No wonder the public feels cheated," Yona said.

Saturday's "protest teaches us that no one can stop the social protest even when it doesn't fulfill its targets immediately," he added.