Anti-overhaul protesters continue march to Jerusalem for third day

Hundreds of protesters against the government’s judicial overhaul plan are taking part in the third day of the self-styled “pilgrimage” to Jerusalem — in temperatures of 31 degrees Celsius (88 degrees Fahrenheit) — which began in Tel Aviv.

Participants, who gathered earlier at the Lehi Forest outside the capital, are currently marching 6.5 kilometers (four miles) along Highway 424 to Kibbutz Nahshon, where they will have a “Festival of Democracy” before settling down to stay the night.

Many of the demonstrators arrived to the march by car and will not be spending the night outdoors with the protest’s core group.

The march will culminate on Saturday outside the Knesset, where organizers plan to set up tents and stay put for an indefinite amount of time, as the coalition readies to pass into law the first overhaul bill, which would curtail judicial use of the “reasonableness” test to evaluate politicians’ decisions.

“The nation of Israel is making a pilgrimage in the hundreds of thousands,” says Moshe Radman, one of the protest organizers, to kick off the march.

Anti-overhaul protest organizer Moshe Radman at the outset of the third day of a march to Jerusalem, at Lehi Forest, July 20, 2023. (Charlie Summers/Times of Israel)