Erdan: We’ll bring Haredi protesters who attacked soldier to justice

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan on Friday lashed out at Haredi protesters who attacked an IDF soldier during a demonstration in the predominantly ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv, a day earlier.

The incident took place during a series of protests by members of the ultra-Orthodox community over the arrest of a Haredi man who refused to appear at his draft office. Protesters clashed with police in a number of locations, resulting in security officials employing riot dispersal measures, including the use of water cannons. Thirty-three protesters were arrested.

Footage from the incident in Bnei Brak shows the protesters knocking the soldier to the ground, then kicking and hitting him, before he was retrieved by other members of the security forces.

The soldier said the attack led to him using tear gas to repel his assailants, Channel 10 reported Friday. The soldier is also a resident of Bnei Brak, the report said. Protesters claimed that the security forces used tear gas before the attack on the soldier.

Writing in Hebrew on Twitter, Erdran said he instructed police to “bring the lawbreakers to justice” and urged community leaders to speak out against the violence.

“The images depicting an IDF soldier being violently attacked by dozens of young ultra-Orthodox men are shocking,” Erdan wrote. “Bullying must be uprooted. I have instructed the police to do everything possible to bring the lawbreakers to justice. I expect the heads of the Haredi community to condemn and denounce such acts, which are not representative of the Haredi public and only do it harm.”

Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni also condemned the protesters who attacked the soldier, the Israel National News website reported.

“This gross violence against a soldier in Bnei Brak is not Judaism. This is not my Judaism. Haredi soldiers deserve all the support in the world, and their attackers [deserve] uncompromising enforcement of the law,” she said Friday.

Police used water cannons and mounted officers on Thursday as they attempted to prevent hundreds of ultra-Orthodox protesters from blocking main roads during rush hour in a series of demonstrations over the draft dodger. At least 24 protesters were arrested.

The protests were stepped up Thursday after police extended the detention of the 24-year-old for an additional 10 days.

The demonstrators blocked major thoroughfares across the country, holding up traffic during peak rush-hour at the start of the weekend. They brought traffic to a near standstill on Route 1 — the main highway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv — after running onto the road and blocking vehicles at Latrun Junction, a major intersection.

Police later reopened the road.

In Jerusalem, mounted police charged protesters and others were hit with water cannons as they staged a sit down at Bar Ilan Junction, a main thoroughfare leading out of the capital.

Police said prior to the protests that while it respects the “freedom to protest,” it “will not enable disturbers of the peace to violate the law and endanger the lives” of Israeli citizens.

Ten protesters at Bar Ilan Junction were reportedly arrested by police. The ultra-orthodox men yelled slurs at police officers removing them from the road, including calling female police officers “shiksa,” a pejorative Yiddish term used for non-Jewish women, according to Hebrew media reports.

Many in the ultra-Orthodox community shun the mandatory military service that applies to most Israelis, and the community has historically enjoyed blanket exemptions in favor of religious seminary studies. But some in the religious community refuse to even appear at the recruiting office to request such exemptions in protest against the state.

Without getting an exemption, those Haredi men are legally considered draft dodgers and open to military detention, as was the case with the 24-year-old yeshiva student earlier this week.

In addition to the arrests in Jerusalem, two others were taken in by police in Beit Shemesh, which has a large ultra-Orthodox population. There were also protests reported in the cities of Ashdod, El’ad, Beitar Illit and at the Shilat Junction, near the city of Modiin.