Tent city erected outside Israeli Knesset before judicial vote

Hundreds of protesters have set up an encampment outside the Israeli Knesset amid last-ditch efforts to halt the government’s controversial judicial reforms.

Legislators began a debate on the first major part of the reforms on Sunday, with a vote expected to take place on Monday.The bill would curb the Supreme Court’s powers by stopping judges from striking down government decisions for being “unreasonable”.

The government says the judicial reforms are needed to limit the powers of judges but opponents say they are a threat to democracy.

The makeshift protest camp was built late on Saturday in a large municipal park opposite the Knesset in West Jerusalem after tens of thousands of Israelis completed a march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Sapir, a biology student at Bar-Ilan University who joined the protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Friday, said “It was very hot and emotional [seeing] the opposition of the entire nation [along with] people bringing water and food and caring for all our needs.”

Benny Gantz, a prominent opposition leader, visited the camp and sought to reassure protesters that the opposition would continue to oppose the legislation.

“The emergency hour is not on its way, it has already come, and we all need to go on strike now,” pleaded Tali Gilan to Benny Gantz.

Gilan, a social worker and art therapist from Pardes Hannah, joined the march on Friday for its final leg to Jerusalem and spent the night in the camp.

“I cannot speak with my daughters … how can I tell them to be Zionists in a state like this?” Gilan told Gantz, begging him to boycott the Knesset debate.He defended his decision to proceed to parliament, citing the opposition’s pledge to “[do] everything we can” to slow down the vote, noting that if a boycott were held the bill could be passed into law “in seven minutes”.

Surrounded by protestors expressing their frustration that the opposition was not doing enough, he tried to reassure the crowd that they were united.

“We agree with the same goals – a free and democratic Jewish Israel,” he said, encouraging them to “keep up [the] protest”.