Departing flights from Israel's main international airport were grounded, and the country's largest trade union called for its 800,000 members — in health, transit, banking and other fields — to stop work.
to overhaul the judiciary.
"This is the last chance to stop this move into a dictatorship," said Matityahu Sperber, 68, who joined a stream of people headed to the protest. "I’m here for the fight to the end."Nationwide protests erupted in Israel on Sunday night, March 26, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, for opposing controversial judicial reforms.
The government has labelled them anarchists out to topple a democratically elected leadership and says the plan will restore a balance between the judicial and executive branches and rein in what they see as an interventionist court with liberal sympathies. On Monday, as the embers of the highway bonfires were cleared, Israel's ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, called again for an immediate halt to the overhaul.
The developments were being watched in Washington, which is closely allied with Israel yet has been uneasy with Netanyahu and the far-right elements of his government. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the United States was "deeply concerned" by the developments in Israel, "which further underscore the urgent need for compromise."
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