On Thursday in Berlin , Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the criticism of the controversial judicial reform program as "absurd," while German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern in this regard.

At the German Chancellery, Schulz did not hide his "grave concern" about reforming the Israeli judiciary, which his critics see as a threat to democracy, which Netanyahu categorically rejects.

The reform program, which aims to limit the powers of the Supreme Court, has led to a deep division in the Jewish state. On Wednesday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog warned of the danger of a "civil war".

"As a partner of democratic values and a close friend of Israel, we are following the discussions very carefully and with great concern, and I will not hide it," Schulz said during a joint press conference with Netanyahu in Berlin.

He urged Netanyahu to reconsider the settlement proposed by the Israeli president, which was rejected by the Israeli prime minister and his coalition on Wednesday.

"We will be happy, as friends of Israel, if the last word has not yet been said on this proposal," Schultz said.

Faced with questions from journalists during the press conference, which started one hour late, Netanyahu rejected several times any danger to the country's democracy.

"It is being said that I am a ruler who abolishes democracy. It will not take long to realize that this is absurd and absurd," he said.

The visit of the Israeli leader put the German government under pressure, so that Netanyahu's opponents asked Berlin to cancel the visit.

Germany and Israel established strong diplomatic relations in the decades following World War II, and Berlin pledged to preserve the Israeli state after the Holocaust committed by Nazi Germany.

Successive German governments have described Israeli national security as a major priority in foreign policy, which Schulz confirmed Thursday.

On Thursday, Netanyahu will meet German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, before leaving Berlin in the evening.

Steinmeier said during a trip to Tallinn, Estonia, on Wednesday that he planned to discuss the controversial reforms with Netanyahu.

Since the announcement in early January of the reform plan that the most right-wing government in Israel's history wants to implement, weekly mass demonstrations have taken place across the country to denounce what critics describe as an anti-democratic aberration.

Liat Tzvi, 52, a researcher at Tel Aviv University, told AFP during Thursday's gathering, "I fear that this place will turn into a religious state, that the Jewish laws will be occupied and that democratic freedom as we know it will no longer exist."

Meanwhile, around 500 people gathered in the afternoon near the famous Brandenburg Gate in the heart of Berlin.

"We will fight for democracy. Democracy is a must, we cannot abandon it," said Gilat Fish, an Israeli who has lived in Bonn for five years and came to Berlin to demonstrate.

Herzog made troubling remarks on Wednesday about the state of the country.

And he warned that "anyone who believes that a real civil war that kills human lives is a limit that we will not reach, has no idea what he is talking about," stressing that he is convinced that "the majority of Israelis want a compromise."

Herzog continued, "Exactly now, in the seventy-fifth year of the independence of the State of Israel, the abyss is close. Today I tell you what I told them: Civil war is a red line. I will not allow it to happen."

The Israeli prime minister and his allies see reform as necessary to rebalance elected officials and the Supreme Court.

They consider unelected Supreme Court justices to be politicized and have more power than elected representatives.

On Tuesday, the Israeli Knesset approved, in a first reading, a clause allowing the cancellation of some Supreme Court decisions, and it had already adopted other provisions in February that were condemned.