Embassy staff around the world are told to down tools during nationwide strikes in Israel

Israeli embassies worldwide were instructed to join a strike on Monday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul plan, a workers’ union letter said.

The letter, seen by Reuters, citing a nationwide strike in Israel declared by the Histadrut labour federation, said Foreign Ministry activities in the country and abroad would be limited to emergency services.

Departing flights from the country’s main international airport were grounded, large mall chains and universities shut their doors, and Israel’s largest trade union group 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, Yoav Gallant, 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.

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.

Source of data and images: dailymail