The Israel Medical Association announces a strike for this Tuesday in protest of judicial reform

July 24 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Israel Medical Association has called a 24-hour strike for Tuesday to protest the approval of the first law of the judicial reform promoted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The doctors are called to provide an on-call service, so they will only attend urgent cases, reported the Israeli newspaper ‘Yedioth Aharonoth’. The emergencies will work normally.

Meanwhile, the president of the main Israeli union confederation, Histadrut, Arnon Bar-David, has advanced his intention to call a strike “which, if necessary, will become a general strike.”

“In recent days I have done everything possible to achieve a consensus. The ball is in the court of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The opportunity to heal the schism of the Israeli people has been lost,” he said.

Histadrut presented a proposal over the weekend to try to reach an agreement between the government and the opposition, but Netanyahu’s Likud party flatly rejected the initiative despite having the backing of the main opposition party, Yesh Atid.

The Knesset has approved this Monday the law that annuls the so-called reasonableness clause, which until now enabled the courts to annul a government decision if it considers that it goes against the democratic system.

The law has been approved with 64 of the 120 favorable votes of the Knesset and zero votes against, since the opposition has left the plenary session in protest against the initiative and while tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the norm in the vicinity of the parliament headquarters.