Thousands of demonstrators gathered rallied Monday across Israel in protest of the contentious plan to overhaul the country's legal system, as lawmakers prepare to hold an initial vote.
Monday's vote on part of the legislation is just the first of three readings required for parliamentary approval.
While the process is expected to take months, the vote is a sign of the coalition's determination to barrel ahead and seen by many as an act of bad faith.
Early Monday, protesters blocked the entrance to the homes of coalition lawmakers and halted traffic on Tel Aviv's main highway.
Ahead of the main demonstration in Jerusalem, hundreds were protesting in Tel Aviv and the northern city of Haifa, holding signs reading "resistance is mandatory."
Last week, some 100,000 people demonstrated outside the Knesset as a committee granted initial approval to the plan. Trainloads of people arrived in Jerusalem on packed trains, chanting, “democracy,” cheering and whistling, and waving the national flag. It was the largest protest in the city in years.
The overhaul has prompted otherwise stoic former security chiefs to speak out, and even warn of civil war. In a sign of the rising emotions, a group of army veterans in their 60s and 70s stole a decommissioned tank from a war memorial site and draped it with Israel's declaration of independence before being stopped by police.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies, a collection of ultra-religious and ultranationalist lawmakers, say the plan is meant to fix a system that has given the courts and government legal advisers too much sayin how legislation is crafted and decisions are made.
Critics say it will upend the country's system of checks and balances and concentrate power in the hands of the prime minister. They also say that Netanyahu, who is on trial for a series of corruption charges, has a conflict of interest.
Speaking to his cabinet on Sunday, Netanyahu dismissed suggestions that Israel's democracy was under threat. "Israel was and will remain a strong and vibrant democracy," he said.