An aerial view shows Israelis demonstrating as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nationalist coalition government presses on with its contentious judicial overhaul, in Tel Aviv, Israel March 4, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg

i24 News – Protest organizers said a planned mass demonstration against the Israeli government’s proposed judicial overhaul would go ahead as planned in Tel Aviv on Saturday night despite several recent deadly terror attacks and violence.

They have agreed, though, to a police request to cancel a march through the city streets afterward.

Israeli police addressed the organizers of the anti-reform protest movement earlier on Saturday, asking them to avoid blocking roads or interfering with on-duty police in any way, due to the volatile security situation amid an ongoing wave of Palestinian terror.

A statement from a police spokesperson said that thousands of police officers will be deployed at tonight’s protests in Tel Aviv and elsewhere in Israel. The protest movement against the judicial overhaul proposed by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has seen numerous clashes between police and protesters.

Last week, some 450,000 Israelis participated in various protests across the country, according to a count by an anti-overhaul NGO – including some 170,000 in Tel Aviv, where protesters have regularly blocked the Ayalon highway, one of Israel’s main traffic arteries.

While the reform has been put on hold by Netanyahu following a political crisis, there are no signs that the popular mobilization against it is on the wane, even though it has been displaced from the headlines in the past week by an upsurge in deadly Palestinian terror attacks.

“At a time of a heightened security alert across the country, it is important to keep the roads open for the passage of emergency vehicles,” the police statement said. It also called on the public to report any suspicious objects of behavior.