TEL AVIV - Hundreds of young Israeli couples and students who are fed up with steep rising housing costs have taken to the streets of Tel Aviv's streets and several other major cities, setting up tent camps in protest to express their frustration.

What started as one student's desire to protest an eviction from her apartment so that the building could undergo a luxury renovation, has now turned into a small tent city at the northern end of Tel Aviv's tony Rothschild Boulevard.

The protest, which started last Thursday, has now spread across the country. The Israeli news site Ynet reported on Sunday that protest tents have also been set up at Ruppin College in the central Sharon region, and at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the southern city of Beersheba.

Organizers said protests are also planned for Tuesday in Jerusalem, Haifa, Kfar Saba, north of Tel Aviv, and in Kiryat Shmona in the north.

Regev Contes, 35, told Xinhua that the participants come from across the political spectrum, and that despite the heat and lack of sleep, were determined to keep going.

He added that passersby reactions have been mixed, with some offering food and moral support, while others taking a less sympathetic tack.

"We're in the middle of the exam period right now," one student told Ynet. "But since this is an urgent issue for all of us, and we feel it very well in our bank accounts every month, we'll make the effort to come and protest."

Both left and right-wing student organizations are backing the apolitical protest, with Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai and several Knesset (parliament) members paying protestors a visit.

However, not all parliamentarians were equally welcomed.

Likud Knesset member Miri Regev told Army radio Sunday morning that protestors spat upon and cursed her. She said that she believed that "anarchists" were behind some of the protests.

The Tel Aviv Student Union said it plans to send cellphone messages to 27,000 students at Tel Aviv University, calling on students to visit the Tel Aviv protestors.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at Sunday's weekly cabinet session, called on the protestors to take their tents to Jerusalem and support his attempts to enact changes in housing laws at the Israel Lands Administration.

"I am aware of the rent crisis. I am certainly aware of the housing crisis," Netanyahu told the assembled ministers, and slammed what he termed as "two insane bureaucracies that prevent the planning and marketing of apartments."

The prime minister said that in coming weeks, the government would submit two bills containing what he called "historic" legislation "that the State of Israel has been awaiting and hoping for because only together will it be possible to bring about a genuine start of the housing solution."

Netanyahu said that changes would take two to three years to bear fruit, according to a statement released by his bureau.