Police fired water cannon and made numerous arrests as scuffles broke out during the protests in Tel Aviv and close to the prime minister's residence in Jerusalem, where police said dozens of protesters tried to break through security cordons.
Over the past three days, demonstrators protesting against the move to sack Shin Bet head Ronen Bar have joined forces with protesters angry at the decision to resume fighting in Gaza, breaking a two-month-old ceasefire, while 59 Israeli hostages remain in the Palestinian enclave.
"We're very, very worried that our country is becoming a dictatorship," Rinat Hadashi, 59, said in Jerusalem. "They're abandoning our hostages, they're neglecting all the important things for this country."
Netanyahu said this week he had lost confidence in Bar, who has led Shin Bet since 2021, and intended to dismiss him.
The decision followed months of tension between the two over a corruption investigation into allegations that a number of aides in Netanyahu's office were offered bribes by figures connected with Qatar.
Netanyahu has dismissed the accusation as a politically motivated attempt to unseat him but his critics have accused him of undermining the institutions underpinning Israel's democracy by seeking Bar's removal.
In a letter to the government that was distributed by Shin Bet as ministers met to formally approve his dismissal, Bar said the decision was founded on "baseless claims that are nothing more than a disguise for completely different, extraneous and fundamentally unacceptable motives."
He has already announced that he intended to step down early to take responsibility for the intelligence failures that allowed the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, to take place.
The angry scenes on Thursday highlighted divisions that have deepened since Netanyahu returned to power as head of a right-wing coalition at the end of 2022.
On Thursday Yair Golan, a former deputy Chief of Staff in the military who now leads the opposition Democrats party, was pushed to the ground during a scuffle, drawing condemnation and calls for an investigation by other opposition politicians.
Former defence minister Benny Gantz said the clashes were a direct result of divisions caused by "an extremist government that has lost its grip".
Separately, at least 91 Palestinians have been killed and dozens wounded in air strikes across the Gaza Strip after Israel resumed bombing and ground operations, the enclave's health ministry says, effectively ditching a two-month-old ceasefire.
After two months of relative calm, Gazans were again fleeing for their lives after Israel effectively abandoned a ceasefire, launching a new all-out air and ground campaign against the Gaza Strip's dominant Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets on residential neighbourhoods, ordering people out of Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun towns in the north, the Shejaia district in Gaza City and towns on the eastern outskirts of Khan Younis in the south.
Late on Thursday, Israel's military said it had begun ground operations in the Shaboura district of Gaza's southernmost city Rafah, which abuts the Egyptian border.
A day after sending tanks into the centre of the enclave, the Israeli military said on Thursday it had also begun conducting ground operations in the north of the Gaza Strip, along the coastal route in Beit Lahiya.
Hamas, which had not retaliated during the first 48 hours of the renewed Israeli assault, said its fighters fired rockets into Israel.Â
Palestinian medics said Israeli strikes targeted several houses in northern and southern sections of the Gaza Strip.
With talks having failed to bridge differences over terms to extend the ceasefire, the military resumed its air assaults on the strip with a massive bombing campaign on Tuesday before sending soldiers in the day after.
Israel's military said forces had been engaged for the past 24 hours in what it described as an operation to expand a buffer zone separating the northern and southern halves of the Gaza Strip, known as the Netzarim corridor.
Tuesday's first day of resumed air strikes killed more than 400 Palestinians, one of the deadliest days of the 17-month-old conflict, with scant let-up since.
In a blow to Hamas as it sought to rebuild its administration, this week's strikes have killed some of its top figures, including the de facto Hamas-appointed head of the Gaza Strip government, the chief of security services, his aide and the deputy head of the Hamas-run justice ministry.
