“I’m here tonight protesting against the transition of Israel from a democracy to an autocracy,” Dov Levenglick, a 48-year-old software engineer, told the Reuters news agency in Tel Aviv.

The proposed changes, which the government says are needed to curb overreach by judges, have drawn fierce opposition from groups including lawyers and raised concerns among business leaders, widening already deep political divisions in Israeli society.

Netanyahu, on trial for corruption, has dismissed the protests as a refusal by leftist opponents to accept the results of last November’s election, which produced one of the most right-wing governments in Israel’s history.

Last month, he was forced to remove a top minister, Aryeh Deri, who leads the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, due to a recent tax evasion conviction.

In addition to the judicial changes, his government has announced its intention to expand illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, as well as social reforms that have worried the LGBTQ community.

Dania Shwartz, 44, from the city of Ramat Gan, told AFP news agency that protesters were “reclaiming” the Israeli flag.