PROTESTS OVER COURT OVERHAUL SWEEP ISRAEL

A new wave of mass demonstrations against a government plan to limit judicial independence swept across Israel on Thursday, with protesters restricting road access to the country’s main airport hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Italy.

Thousands of demonstrators, some of them in a convoy of tractors, disrupted traffic in several cities, and others sailed a flotilla of boats through a maritime shipping lane near a major port.

More than 20 protesters were arrested, according to Kan, the Israeli public broadcaster. Some demonstrators parked their cars on an access road to the airport, BenGurion International, near Tel Aviv, slowing the entry of passengers and prompting the police to warn that the cars would be towed.

The disruption coincided with a trip to the country by Lloyd Austin, the U.S. secretary of defense, who was visiting the Middle East, and it prompted Israeli officials to move meetings between him, Netanyahu, and Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, to the airport to allow the participants to enter and exit the site by helicopter.

Austin was in Israel to talk with Israeli officials about the need to calm tensions in the occupied West Bank and to discuss efforts to restrict Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.

The protests have taken place in cities across Israel for weeks in response to widespread public anger over the government’s proposal to reduce the inf luence of the judiciary. The issue has divided Israeli society, led to fears for the future of the country’s democracy and prompted warnings of political violence and even civil war.