Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday, sparking widespread protests, a day after Gallant broke ranks with the government and called for a halt to a contentious proposal to revamp the judicial system.
As word of the dismissal spread, tens of thousands of protesters flocked to the streets late at night across the country, many carrying blue and white Israeli flags. Crowds gathered outside Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem, breaking through a security barrier at one point.
Three months after gaining government, Netanyahu’s nationalist-religious coalition has been rocked by the sharp differences highlighted by its hallmark judicial reform plans. Netanyahu’s office did not designate a replacement or provide any other specifics in announcing Gallant’s firing.
Netanyahu fired Gallant after the retired naval commander warned on Saturday that the revamp plans posed a clear, immediate, and real threat to the state’s security and demanded that they be halted.
On Sunday night, Netanyahu reacted as he was about to ratify a key component of the overhaul package, a bill that would tighten political control over judicial appointments, giving the executive greater authority to designate Supreme Court justices.
When demonstrators poured into the streets, police used water cannons to force them back from Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem, while in Tel Aviv, where hundreds of thousands have gone to the streets since the beginning of the year, protesters lit multiple bonfires along a major motorway.
