From the Liveblog of
Thursday, October 30, 2025
Likud’s Edelstein joins reservists at Jerusalem counterprotest
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleAs hundreds of thousands of Haredim pack Jerusalem’s streets for an anti-conscription rally, a small group of counterprotesters gather outside the International Convention Center.
Likud MK Yuli Edelstein mingles with the dozens of demonstrators, most of them reservists and soldiers, saying that he came “to embrace them.”
Edelstein was removed this week from the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee after being stripped of the panel’s chairmanship for supporting legislation to levy sanctions on draft evaders.
The counterprotesters are fenced into the area and guarded by a phalanx of Border Police officers as some Haredi demonstrators gather on the other side of the gate to hassle them.
Israel Ben Shitrit, a combat soldier who was badly injured in Gaza’s Khan Younis during the war, is interrupted by the blowing of a shofar as he tries to speak to the crowd.
“We hear now the shofar, but hear our cry as well: ‘How are you able to stand to the side for two whole years as families, people are giving their lives?'” he says, addressing Haredi anti-draft protesters.
Addressing politicians, he asks, “How can you look us in the eyes, and for two full years refrain from legislating a real draft law?”
The Times of Israel Community.