Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in the center of Tel Aviv for the 28th consecutive Saturday to rally against the judicial reform of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu amid a deepening crisis and a lack of compromise between the ruling coalition and the opposition to promote reform.
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This Saturday, protest organizers announced rallies in 150 locations across Israel, including major cities. According to the Israeli company Crowd Solutions, which studies the behavior of the crowd at mass events, about 150 thousand people gathered at the main protest on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv. Protest organizers say some 400,000 people took to the streets Saturday night across Israel, half of whom rallied on Tel Aviv’s Kaplan Street near Azrieli Junction, where the government buildings complex is located.
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The mass rally took place despite the sudden hospitalization of Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is currently being examined in a hospital in Tel Aviv after alleged dehydration during a recent trip to the Sea of Galilee and long exposure to the sun.
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Protest activity in Israel this week has increased significantly against the backdrop of the approval of the Parliament (Knesset) in the first reading of the bill to abolish the “rationality factor”. This bill concerns a review of the ability of the Supreme Court to use the “reasonableness factor” in assessing public policy and parliamentary decisions. This part of the reform aims to limit the ability of the Supreme Court to overturn parliamentary decisions on the grounds that they are “unreasonable”. If such a bill is finally passed, the government will have more freedom in making political decisions and in appointing various people, including controversial ones, to public office.
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During the action in Tel Aviv, the organizers announced a week of unprecedented and ongoing protests across the country. Highway blockages and public order disturbances are expected. According to the newspaper The Times of Israel, some groups of reservists of the Israeli army and the national medical association announced their intention to join the protests.
