Border Police officers sent to jail for barbecuing on base over Shabbat

Four Border Police officers were sentenced to two weeks in military prison for “harming religion and Judaism” by barbecuing on base during Shabbat, according to Hebrew media.

The punishment was reportedly shortened to one week following an uproar from parents of the detained officers and from politicians.

The officers, who serve as combat medics at a training base in the West Bank settlement of Beit Horon, will be released on Monday and return to their positions, Channel 12 reported Thursday.

According to Hebrew reports, a religious non-commissioned officer caught the four medics barbecuing on a Friday night some two weeks ago in an area of the base located far away from the barracks.

According to halacha, or Jewish ritual law, cooking and lighting a fire are forbidden on Shabbat, which begins at sundown on Friday and ends at nightfall on Saturday.

The medics put out the barbecue immediately after he confronted them, the Kan public broadcaster reported.

The NCO reported the medics to the base rabbi, and a senior officer ultimately sentenced them to three weeks in the Beit Lid military prison, which he cut down to two weeks the next day following an appeal, the Hebrew reports said.

During the trial, one of the medics expressed regret over the incident but said the punishment went overboard, adding that the four were unaware there was a rule forbidding barbecues on base during Shabbat, Haaretz reported.

Keren Peretz, the mother of one of the detained medics, told Kan: “Sending to prison is not proportional in any way. As far as I’m concerned, prison is for criminals, and they’re absolutely not in that category.”

At a small protest outside the Beit Lid prison on Wednesday, Pe’er Elazar, the father of one of the medics, addressed his daughter through a megaphone, saying that “all you did was barbecue,” but her superiors “committed a crime.”

“They’ll be punished in the end. We’ll make sure of it,” said Elazar.

MK Gilad Kariv of the left-leaning Democrats party, head of the Knesset’s informal religious liberties lobby, slammed the punishment, writing on X Wednesday that “Israel is not a halacha state, and a Border Police officer is not entitled to punish troops for ‘harming religion and Judaism’.”

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid also wrote Thursday that the medics should be pardoned.

“Judaism is not something you force in the State of Israel through threats and arrests,” wrote Lapid. “Judaism is what connects us and makes us one nation.”

In a statement quoted by Haaretz, Border Police said the medics “acted contrary to directives and procedures, in the area of the base and in public.”