Israeli protesters hold anti-regime rallies for 24th consecutive week

The rallies were held in Tel Aviv and other cities throughout the territories on Saturday for a 24th straight week.

Protesters were seen lighting up flares and shouting anti-regime slogans.
Some held up a huge banner emblazoned with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's picture and the words "persona non grata."

The demonstrations have been a weekly occurrence since late December when Netanyahu announced his plan to have Knesset (the Israeli parliament) rubberstamp the so-called overhaul.

The changes seek to rob the Israeli supreme court of much of its ability to rule out politicians' decisions. They will also give the political elite a bigger say in the process of selection of the court's judges.

Netanyahu's cabinet, a crossover among his Likud party and extremist and ultra-Orthodox allies, claims the changes are necessary to strike a balance in the power that is wielded by the regime's various ruling branches.

Back in March, the premier announced a "pause" in the reforms to allegedly enable negotiations on the scheme.

Opposition officials Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz, however, suspended their participation in the talks on Wednesday, after the parliament failed to elect a member of the coalition to the committee to select judges.

Cited by various news outlets, protesters, meanwhile, described the reform scheme as a ticking bomb.

"All the bills [constituting various elements of the judicial reform] are still like a bullet in the chamber that can be released in an instant. Things haven't changed," one demonstrator told AFP.