Ultra-Orthodox protesters opposed to military conscription are expected to block roads Wednesday after the arrest of a yeshiva student suspected of draft evasion, the first such detention in roughly three weeks.
The demonstrations are expected to begin around 4 p.m. in the Bnei Brak area. Previous protests of this kind have frequently targeted Route 4 or Jabotinsky Street, though additional protest sites are also possible.
(Photo: Jack Guez/AFP)
According to Shas lawmaker Moshe Abutbul, the student had been summoned to the Lahav 433 police unit to give testimony in connection with a fraud investigation.
Abutbul claimed that once the testimony was completed, a police officer escorted the student to the parking lot and then transferred him to military police.
“This is crossing a red line and a serious violation of the police commissioner’s commitment to the ultra-Orthodox public,” Abutbul said. “This is not how trust is built. This is how it is destroyed.”
In a letter to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Abutbul argued that police instructions may not have been sufficiently clarified to officers in the field.
“There is an immediate need for clear procedures allowing ultra-Orthodox young men to file complaints at police stations without being arrested,” he wrote.
“Continuing to operate in this way could severely damage public trust in the police and cause citizens to avoid turning to them when needed, something that could cost lives.”
The arrest comes against the backdrop of the ongoing political and legal battle over military service for ultra-Orthodox men.
The governing coalition had advanced legislation intended to shield draft evaders from arrest until the elections, but the High Court of Justice suspended the measure with an interim order.
In practice, however, arrests of ultra-Orthodox draft evaders inside Israel have remained rare.
The IDF has not been given the operational tools needed to carry out widespread arrests, police generally do not assist military authorities in such operations, and attempts to detain draft evaders in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods have repeatedly drawn large crowds that confront military police.
As a result, even as the dispute over Haredi conscription has intensified, relatively few suspected ultra-Orthodox draft evaders have been arrested inside the country.