Thousands of protesters have blocked Tel Aviv's main highway and major roads and intersections across Israel in a spontaneous outburst of anger following the forced resignation of the city's popular police chief.

Ami Eshed announced on late Wednesday that he was leaving the Israeli police force under what he said was political pressure.

Eshed has regularly clashed with the country's hardline National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has demanded that police take a tougher stance against months of anti-government protests.

"I am paying an intolerably heavy personal price for my choice to avert a civil war," Eshed said.

Eshed said he couldn't live up to the expectations of what he called "the ministerial echelon", which he said had broken all rules and had blatantly interfered in professional decision making.

"I could have easily met these expectations by using unreasonable force that would have filled up the emergency room of Ichilov [Tel Aviv hospital] at the end of every protest," Eshed said.

"For the first time in three decades of service I encountered an absurd reality in which ensuring calm and order was not what was required of me but precisely the opposite," he said.

Thousands of people blocked the Ayalon Highway, halting traffic on the normally bustling thruway. The protesters, many holding blue and white Israeli flags, blew horns, danced in the street and lit multiple bonfires.

Police, some mounted on horseback, attempted to push back the crowds, at times using a water cannon.

Past support for terrorism

Ben-Gvir, who in March had informed Eshed that he would be assigned to a new role on the force, a move seen as dashing his chances to be made police chief, said in a televised statement that Eshed had crossed a dangerous line.

"Politics has seeped into the most senior ranks in Israel, and a uniformed officer has caved to senior politicians on the left," he said.

Ben-Gvir, a hardliner with past convictions for supporting terrorism and incitement, had sought greater authority over the police force when he was tapped to serve as its overseeing minister, prompting concerns about police independence.

Tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new government announced plans in January to overhaul the country's judicial system.

The protests have blocked roads, disrupted the country's main airport and thronged major cities.

Netanyahu and his allies came to power after November's election, Israel's fifth in under four years, all of which were largely referendums on the longtime leader’s fitness to serve while facing corruption charges.

Judicial overhaul

Netanyahu, whose corruption trial has dragged on for nearly three years, and his allies in his nationalist religious government say the overhaul is needed to rein in an overly interventionist judiciary and restore power to elected officials.

Critics say the plan would upend Israel's delicate system of checks and balances and push the country toward dictatorship by concentrating power in the hands of Netanyahu and his allies.

Netanyahu suspended the overhaul in March after mass protests erupted when he tried to fire his defence minister for challenging the plan.

But talks with the political opposition fizzled last month, and Netanyahu's allies have begun moving ahead with the plan again.

Having recanted some of his views, Ben-Gvir joined Netanyahu's new coalition in December, alarming liberals at home and abroad. An illegal settler, the leader of the Jewish Power party has since rebuked police for its treatment of protesters.

Other members of Netanyahu's nationalist-religious coalition have echoed Ben-Gvir, saying police have shown favourable treatment to the protesters who have filled Tel Aviv streets weekly since January, compared with what they see as far harsher treatment of settlers and ultra-Orthodox protesters.