Prime minister doing shenanigans via judiciary to give more power to prime minister. Defense minister said that could hurt military readiness due to unrest. Prime minister fires defense minister.
> Prime minister doing shenanigans via judiciary to give more power to prime minister
My understanding of the situation is more that the right has had many laws shot down consistently by the left leaning Israeli high court (equivalent to the supreme court in the US, except they choose their own judges, not the elected government). Recently, the right has come into a much stronger coalition (after numerous rounds of election over the past four years) and is now using the fact that they are unified enough to finally remove some (most?) of the power the court holds over the Knesset (parliament).
Israel does not have a constitution, and so the seperation of powers is not well defined. Netanyahu has personal interests in a weakened judiciary (he is a corrupt individual), and his allies have political interests (they don't want liberal judicial oversight over their narrow majority religious/far-right aims). Protests are over the government's proposal for judicial reform -- imagine if US congress votes to disallow Supreme Court to ever strike down its legislation. That is the fight.
Concerns in Israel are that by defanging the Judiciary, the country will inevitably be at the mercy of the narrow majority. These concerns have economic and security as well as political basis, according to those who oppose the plan.
In the background there is an increased polarization of the society between left and right (in a very particular Israeli sense of left and right) that is reflected in multiple inconclusive elections and the current narrow-majority government.