TEL AVIV (Dispatches) --
Hundreds of thousands of protesters marched across several cities throughout the occupied territories for a 10th straight week, expressing alarm at the occupying regime of Israel’s extremist direction.
The biggest demonstration was held in the coastal city of Tel Aviv, attracting what the Zionist media estimated at around 100,000 people.
Some 50,000 also rallied in the northern city of Haifa and 10,000 in Beersheba in the central part of the occupied territories. Media reports said the crowds that gathered for new protests were the largest ever since early January when the demonstrations began.
Residents in the occupied territories are angry at so-called legal reforms which hardline prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing for, giving him unprecedented powers.
The reforms would give the 120-member parliament - which is filled with many extremists - the power to overrule the court’s decisions with a simple majority of 61 votes.
Observers say the changes can potentially enable the Knesset to annul a set of corruption charges that Netanyahu is being tried on. The prime minister is being sued for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust.
On Thursday, the regime’s President Issac Herzog called on the coalition to halt the legislation.
The cabinet is, however, preparing to press on with its agenda next week, shunning calls for a pause to allow for negotiations on the divisive plan.
The new extremist direction has plunged the illegal entity to its most serious crisis, with several Zionist leaders warning that it may lead to internal strife and ultimate disintegration of Israel.
On Saturday, former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo was quoted warning that the occupying regime is facing “disastrous” and “unprecedented” danger.
“Israel reached a very dangerous situation regarding the internal segregation that happened due to the right-wing plan to weaken the judicial system and turn Israel into a dictatorship,” Pardo warned.
“I am 70 years old. I had never imagined that we would reach this point. This is the most existential danger since the independence,” he added.
The former intelligence official said that the occupying regime of Israel “does not need a nuclear bomb to be destroyed”, adding the entity “has decided to experience a self-destruction method”.
President Herzog has warned that mounting political polarization had left the occupying entity “on the brink of constitutional and social collapse”.
Netanyahu’s cabinet which unites his Likud party with an array of ultrareligious and ultranationalist groups and is widely regarded as the most rightwing in Israeli history.