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Demonstrators in Tel Aviv on Saturday night
Photo: NurPhoto / NurPhoto / Getty Images
According to the organizers, more than 200,000 Israelis protested against the course of the right-wing religious government at demonstrations in Tel Aviv and other cities.
In the coastal city of Tel Aviv, protesters marched through the streets with Israeli flags for the sixth straight Saturday night.
The protests, which also took place in cities such as Jerusalem, Beersheva and Haifa, are primarily directed against government plans to specifically weaken the country's judicial system.
Among other things, in the future a majority in parliament should be able to pass a law even if the Supreme Court considers it to be in violation of the Basic Law.
The demonstrators observed a minute's silence in memory of the three Israeli victims of a Palestinian attack on Friday in East Jerusalem.
The 31-year-old assassin from East Jerusalem had steered his car into a crowd near the Ramot neighborhood.
Two brothers aged six and eight and a 20-year-old were killed.
The assassin was shot dead by police officers.
Israeli security forces sealed off his parents' home in east Jerusalem on Saturday, which is later set to be demolished.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also announced on Sunday a "broad-scale operation" against Palestinian assassins and their supporters in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The right-wing extremist police minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, had previously spoken of a military offensive in the Arab-dominated eastern part of Jerusalem.
demonstrations for several weeks
Demonstrations against a controversial judicial reform have been taking place in Israel for several weeks.
Strikes by numerous professional groups and a large demonstration in front of the parliament in Jerusalem are also planned for Monday.
At that time, some of the controversial innovations are to be approved there in the first reading.
At a demonstration in Haifa, the 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Avram Hershko, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2004, warned against an "attempt to transform Israel from a democracy into a dictatorship".
In a speech to other demonstrators, the biochemist, born in Hungary in 1937, demanded: "We have to stop this madness."
The Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz also criticized the current government course in an interview with SPIEGEL.
Israel is facing one of the biggest crises since its founding, she said, and anyone who is a friend of the Jewish state must now speak out.
Security situation remains tense
The violence in the Palestinian territories continued on Saturday.
A 27-year-old Palestinian was shot dead in a confrontation with Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.
Militant Palestinians in the Gaza Strip fired another rocket at the Israeli border area on Saturday evening.
The security situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories has been extremely tense for weeks.
Nine Israelis and one Ukrainian have been killed in Palestinian attacks since the beginning of the year.
Raids by the Israeli army and their own attacks killed 45 Palestinians this year alone.
asr/dpa
