Work­ers from a range of sec­tors in Is­rael launched a na­tion­wide strike on Mon­day, threat­en­ing to par­a­lyze the econ­o­my as they joined a surg­ing protest move­ment against Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu’s plan to over­haul the ju­di­cia­ry.

De­part­ing flights from the coun­try’s main in­ter­na­tion­al air­port were ground­ed, diplo­mats walked off the job at for­eign mis­sions, large mall chains and uni­ver­si­ties shut their doors, and Is­rael’s largest trade union called for its 800,000 mem­bers — in health, tran­sit, bank­ing and oth­er fields — to stop work. Lo­cal gov­ern­ments were ex­pect­ed to close the preschools they run and cut oth­er ser­vices, and the main doc­tors union an­nounced its mem­bers would al­so walk off the job.

The grow­ing re­sis­tance to Ne­tanyahu’s plan came hours af­ter tens of thou­sands of peo­ple burst in­to the streets around the coun­try in a spon­ta­neous show of anger at the prime min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion to fire his de­fense min­is­ter af­ter he called for a pause to the over­haul. Chant­i­ng “the coun­try is on fire,” they lit bon­fires on Tel Aviv’s main high­way, clos­ing the thor­ough­fare and many oth­ers through­out the coun­try for hours.

Thou­sands of pro­test­ers gath­ered Mon­day out­side the Knes­set, or par­lia­ment, to keep up the pres­sure.

“This is the last chance to stop this move in­to a dic­ta­tor­ship,” said Matityahu Sper­ber, 68, who joined a stream of peo­ple head­ed to the protest. “I’m here for the fight to the end.”

The over­haul — dri­ven by Ne­tanyahu, who is on tri­al for cor­rup­tion, and his al­lies in Is­rael’s most right-wing gov­ern­ment ever — has plunged Is­rael in­to one of its worst do­mes­tic crises. It has sparked sus­tained protests that have gal­va­nized near­ly all sec­tors of so­ci­ety, in­clud­ing its mil­i­tary, where re­servists have in­creas­ing­ly come out pub­licly to say they will not serve a coun­try veer­ing to­ward au­toc­ra­cy.

Is­rael’s Pales­tin­ian cit­i­zens, how­ev­er, have large­ly sat out the protests. Many say Is­rael’s democ­ra­cy is tar­nished by its mil­i­tary rule over their brethren in the West Bank and the dis­crim­i­na­tion they them­selves face.

The tur­moil has mag­ni­fied long­stand­ing and in­tractable dif­fer­ences over Is­rael’s char­ac­ter that have riv­en it since its es­tab­lish­ment. The pro­test­ers say they are fight­ing for the very soul of the na­tion, say­ing the over­haul will re­move Is­rael’s sys­tem of checks and bal­ances and di­rect­ly chal­lenge its de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ideals.

The gov­ern­ment has la­belled them an­ar­chists out to top­ple a de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed lead­er­ship and says the plan will re­store a bal­ance be­tween the ju­di­cial and ex­ec­u­tive branch­es and rein in what they see as an in­ter­ven­tion­ist court with lib­er­al sym­pa­thies.

At the cen­tre of the cri­sis is Ne­tanyahu him­self, Is­rael’s longest serv­ing leader, and ques­tions about the lengths he may be will­ing to go to main­tain his grip on pow­er, even as he bat­tles charges of fraud, breach of trust and ac­cept­ing bribes in three sep­a­rate af­fairs. He de­nies wrong­do­ing.

The fir­ing of his de­fense min­is­ter at a time of height­ened se­cu­ri­ty threats in the West Bank and else­where, ap­peared to be a last straw for many, in­clud­ing ap­par­ent­ly the His­tadrut, the coun­try’s largest trade union um­brel­la group, which had sat out the month­s­long protests be­fore the de­fense min­is­ter’s fir­ing.

“Where are we lead­ing our beloved Is­rael? To the abyss,” Arnon Bar-David, the group’s head, said in a rous­ing speech to ap­plause. “To­day we are stop­ping every­one’s de­scent to­ward the abyss.”

On Mon­day, as the em­bers of the high­way bon­fires were cleared, Is­rael’s cer­e­mo­ni­al pres­i­dent, Isaac Her­zog, called again for an im­me­di­ate halt to the over­haul.

“The en­tire na­tion is rapt with deep wor­ry. Our se­cu­ri­ty, econ­o­my, so­ci­ety — all are un­der threat,” he said. “Wake up now!”

Op­po­si­tion leader Yair Lapid said the cri­sis was dri­ving Is­rael to the brink.

“We’ve nev­er been clos­er to falling apart. Our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is at risk, our econ­o­my is crum­bling, our for­eign re­la­tions are at their low­est point ever, we don’t know what to say to our chil­dren about their fu­ture in this coun­try,” Lapid said. “We have been tak­en hostage by a bunch of ex­trem­ists with no brakes and no bound­aries.”

It was un­clear if the threats posed by the strikes to Is­rael’s econ­o­my, which is al­ready on shaky ground, would prompt Ne­tanyahu to halt the over­haul. Is­raeli me­dia re­port­ed that a lawyer rep­re­sent­ing the prime min­is­ter in his cor­rup­tion tri­al threat­ened to quit if the over­haul was not halt­ed.

The de­vel­op­ments were be­ing watched in Wash­ing­ton, which is close­ly al­lied with Is­rael yet has been un­easy with Ne­tanyahu and the far-right el­e­ments of his gov­ern­ment. Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil spokesper­son Adri­enne Wat­son said the Unit­ed States was “deeply con­cerned” by the de­vel­op­ments in Is­rael, “which fur­ther un­der­score the ur­gent need for com­pro­mise.”

“De­mo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues have al­ways been, and must re­main, a hall­mark of the U.S.-Is­rael re­la­tion­ship,” Wat­son said in a state­ment.

Ne­tanyahu had re­port­ed­ly spent the night in con­sul­ta­tions and was set to speak to the na­tion, but lat­er de­layed his speech. Some mem­bers of Ne­tanyahu’s Likud par­ty said they would sup­port the prime min­is­ter if he did heed calls to halt the over­haul.

The ar­chi­tect of the plan, Jus­tice Min­is­ter Yariv Levin, a pop­u­lar par­ty mem­ber, was long a hold­out, promis­ing he would re­sign if the over­haul was sus­pend­ed. But on Mon­day, he said he would re­spect the prime min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion should he halt the leg­is­la­tion.

Still, Ne­tanyahu’s hard-line al­lies pressed him to con­tin­ue on. “We must not halt the re­form in the ju­di­cial sys­tem, and we must not give in to an­ar­chy,” Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ita­mar Ben-Gvir said.

Ne­tanyahu’s dis­missal of De­fense Min­is­ter Yoav Gal­lant ap­peared to sig­nal that the prime min­is­ter and his al­lies would bar­rel ahead. Gal­lant had been the first se­nior mem­ber of the rul­ing Likud par­ty to speak out against it, say­ing the deep di­vi­sions were threat­en­ing to weak­en the mil­i­tary.

And Ne­tanyahu’s gov­ern­ment forged ahead with a cen­tre­piece of the over­haul — a law that would give the gov­ern­ing coali­tion the fi­nal say over all ju­di­cial ap­point­ments. A par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee ap­proved the leg­is­la­tion on Mon­day for a fi­nal vote, which could come this week.

The gov­ern­ment al­so seeks to pass laws that would grant the Knes­set the au­thor­i­ty to over­turn Supreme Court de­ci­sions and lim­it ju­di­cial re­view of laws.

A sep­a­rate law that would cir­cum­vent a Supreme Court rul­ing to al­low a key coali­tion al­ly to serve as min­is­ter was de­layed fol­low­ing a re­quest from that par­ty’s leader.

Ne­tanyahu re­turned to pow­er late last year af­ter a pro­tract­ed po­lit­i­cal cri­sis that sent Is­raelis to the polls five times in less than four years. The elec­tions were all a ref­er­en­dum on Ne­tanyahu’s fit­ness to serve while on tri­al for cor­rup­tion. —TEL AVIV, Is­rael (AP)

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Sto­ry by TIA GOLD­EN­BERG | As­so­ci­at­ed Press. As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ists Lau­rie Kell­man in Tel Aviv and Isaac Scharf and Sam Mc­Neil in Jerusalem con­tributed to this re­port.