A main highway in Tel Aviv was blocked on Thursday by thousands of right-wing Israelis who demonstrated in favor of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to overhaul the country's judicial system.

"The nation demands legal reform!" chanted some of the demonstrators, carrying blue-and-white Israeli flags.

The crowd was much smaller than the hundreds of thousands of people who have taken to the streets in recent months to demonstrate against the plan.

But the gathering had the same effect. Protesters honked their car horns and hoisted Israeli flags, crippling traffic along the Ayalon highway, the main north-south thoroughfare running through the coastal city.

Police said they were responding to the group that blocked the freeway, the scene of almost weekly stoppages by protesters who see in Netanyahu's plan a threat to judicial independence.

Beset by the domestic upheaval and expressions of concern and disapproval in Washington, Netanyahu on Monday paused the overhaul to allow negotiations on a compromise between his religious-nationalist coalition and opposition parties.

But his opponents have vowed to continue their protests as well.

The plan would give Netanyahu's parliamentary coalition control over judicial appointments and the power to overturn Supreme Court decisions it opposes.

Netanyahu and his allies say the plan is needed to rein in a system of unelected activist judges who wield too much power over political matters.

Opponents say the changes would destroy a system of checks and balances by concentrating too much power in the hands of Netanyahu and his allies in parliament.

They also say the prime minister has a conflict of interest while he is on trial for criminal charges and has no business meddling in the country's legal system.