Israeli opposition party leader Benny Gantz has called on prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu to immediately renew talks aimed at reaching a compromise on government plans to reform the judiciary.
Mr Gantz, who said he wanted to avoid bloodshed, was speaking the day after tens of thousands of Israelis took part in spontaneous protests across the country following the resignation of the Tel Aviv police chief Ami Eshed.
Mr Eshed refused to follow orders from hardline national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to take a tougher stance against the ongoing demonstrations.
Mr Gantz warned Mr Netanyahu that he would be responsible for any bloodshed, calling on him to “stop all unilateral legislation and renew negotiations at the president’s residence – if not for democracy, then for the unity of the Israeli people and preventing bloodshed”. Mr Gantz said he continued to back the mass weekly demonstrations, now in their sixth month, as a “brake on the regime coup”.
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Mr Gantz’s call was rejected by Mr Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party. “Benny Gantz should not be trusted. He is a hostage of the protests and does not want or is not capable of arriving at any agreements,” a Likud statement said.
Fourteen people were hospitalised after police used water cannons and horse charges to disperse protesters who blocked the main Tel Aviv Ayalon highway following the dramatic resignation of Mr Eshed.
“With my back erect and my head held high, I am paying an intolerably heavy personal price for my choice to avert a civil war,” Mr Eshed said in a televised statement. “We could have cleared the Ayalon highway in minutes at the cost of breaking heads and crushing bones... We could have filled the emergency room in Ichilov hospital at the end of every demonstration.”
Mr Ben-Gvir, whose attempt to fire Mr Eshed a few months ago was blocked by the attorney general, welcomed the resignation.
The opposition claims the government’s judicial overhaul threatens Israeli democracy and will radically alter the traditional system of checks and balances, taking them away from the judiciary in favour of Mr Netanyahu and his coalition, which is made up of right-wing and religious parties.
Talks brokered by president Yitzhak Herzog aimed at reaching a compromise and avoiding an unprecedented constitutional crisis broke down a few weeks ago after Mr Netanyahu caved in to pressure from his coalition partners who wanted to press ahead with the controversial legislation.
Mr Netanyahu has shelved one contentious element: the plan to grant the Knesset parliament the power to override high court rulings. The passage of other clauses of the legislation will be staggered.
This week, the coalition advanced Bills to curtail judicial review of the “reasonability” of elected officials’ decisions.
The Knesset will vote next Monday on the reasonability clause and the following day the protest movement is planning its biggest nationwide Day of Disruption to date.
Separately on Thursday, an Israeli was shot and killed by a Palestinian gunman outside the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, before himself being shot by Israeli troops. Hamas claimed responsibility, saying the attack was a response to the Israeli operation in Jenin earlier this week, during which at least 12 Palestinians were killed.
