Oceans of Israeli flags, steady drumbeats, cries of "Democracy!" Water cannons, police on horseback, protesters dragged off the ground.

For seven straight months, tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets in the most sustained and intense demonstrations the country has ever seen.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was released from the hospital Monday after an emergency heart procedure, facing an unprecedented national crisis ahead of parliament's vote on the first major piece of legislation to remake the country's justice system.

Demonstrators, many of whom feel the very foundations of their country are being eroded by the government's plan, stepped up their opposition, blocking a road leading up to parliament. Businesses shuttered their doors in protest of the vote.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu underwent surgery to implant a pacemaker on Sunday, just hours before lawmakers began debate on a controversial judicial overhaul bill that has brought tens of thousands of protesters to the streets.

Hundreds of protesters attempted to storm Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses foreign embassies and the seat of Iraq's government, early Saturday following reports of the burning of a Quran carried out by a ultranationalist group in front of the Iraqi Embassy in Copenhagen.

They were pushed back by security forces, who blocked the Jumhuriya bridge leading to the Green Zone, preventing them from reaching the Danish Embassy.

Israeli forces on Saturday shot and killed a Palestinian in disputed circumstances in the northern West Bank — the latest in an ongoing surge of violence that has gripped the region.

The Israeli army said in a statement that two Palestinian men tried to drive a car into soldiers at Sebastia near the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, around midnight, but the claim could not be verified. Soldiers opened fire, killing one and wounding the other.

Protesters took to the streets of the Iraqi and Iranian capitals Friday to denounce Sweden's permission for protests that desecrate the Quran, as Stockholm withdrew staff from its Baghdad embassy.

Hundreds of people gathered in Baghdad's Sadr City after Friday prayers, chanting "Yes, yes to Islam, yes, yes to the Quran", an AFP correspondent said.

For two years, Toveet Israel and dozens of other residents of the Village of Peace have lived in fear.

Dimona, a city on the edge of the nation of Israel's Negev Desert, has been her home for 24 years. Her eight children were born here and know no other country. Now, she and 130 other undocumented members of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem face deportation.

A recent string of public desecrations of the Quran by a handful of anti-Islam activists in Sweden has sparked an angry reaction in Muslim countries and raised questions – including in Sweden – about why such acts are allowed.

In the latest such incident, an Iraqi living in Sweden on Thursday stomped on and kicked Islam's holy book in a two-man rally outside the Iraqi Embassy in Stockholm. The protest was authorized by Swedish police, who kept a handful of agitated counterdemonstrators at a safe distance.

Thousands of Israelis joined a march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Friday in the latest protest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's vow to push through a controversial overhaul of the judiciary system.

Hundreds of protesters became thousands as Israelis joined the 70-kilometer march throughout the day in a demonstration against one of Israel's most far-right governments in history.

Middle East powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Iran have summoned Swedish diplomats to denounce Stockholm's permission for protests that desecrate the Quran on free speech grounds.

The separate moves by both majority-Muslim countries, announced in statements late Thursday, came amid heightened tensions between Sweden and Iraq over a Sweden-based Iraqi refugee who last month burnt pages of the Muslim religious text outside Stockholm's main mosque.