Protesters have also set up a tent city in a park below the parliament building in Jerusalem.
After a late-night emergency meeting, the country’s main labor union said it was considering a general strike, in rare coordination with the country’s largest union of business leaders. And a group representing 10,000 military reservists said its members would resign from military duty if the overhaul continued without social consensus — adding their names to a smaller group of 1,000 Air Force reservists who made a similar threat Friday.
The reservist’s warnings have fueled fears within the defense establishment about Israel’s military preparedness. The Israel Defense Forces, or IDF, relies heavily on reservists, particularly the Air Force.
Citing this fear, 15 retired army chiefs, former police commissioners and former directors of foreign and domestic intelligence agencies called on Mr. Netanyahu wrote a public letter to him, calling him “a man directly responsible for serious damage to the security of the IDF and Israel.”
A few hours later, the Prime Minister began to experience irregularity in his heart. It was detected by a heart-monitoring device implanted in Sheba a week ago, after Mr. Netanyahu was rushed to hospital in what one of the hospital’s doctors described Sunday as a fainting episode.
At that time, Mr. Netanyahu’s office said he suffered mild dizziness, and doctors said he suffered from dehydration after being in the sun during a heat wave. But he was kept overnight in the hospital, examined in the cardiac department and fitted with a heart monitor.
The data from the device “is an indication for urgent pacemaker implantation,” said Prof. Roy Beinart said. Pacemakers are usually inserted through a small incision in the chest and are designed to control a person’s heart rate and prevent problems that can end in cardiac arrest. Small pacemakers can be implanted without a chest incision and with a minimally invasive approach.
Gabby Sobelman Contributed reporting from Rehovot, Israel.
