Municipalities lambaste curfew decision, one says it won’t cooperate

Some municipalities are openly criticizing the government decision to impose nightly curfews in their cities or parts of them.

The municipality of Beitar Illit, an ultra-Orthodox settlement, goes as far as saying it won’t cooperate with the closure unless “fully transparent” explanations are provided.

The municipality argues that only Haredi towns are closed in their entirety (apparently ignoring Arab towns), while in others only select neighborhoods are included in the measures.

“We demand full transparency about infection rates and detailed explanations why a curfew is being imposed on an entire ultra-Orthodox city,” the municipality says in a statement.

“We cannot give our backing to steps taken without transparency. We will be able to cooperate in cutting morbidity rates only when such explanations are provided to the residents.”

Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion says he will comply with the government order on the nighttime curfews in parts of the capital, though he strongly criticizes the policy.

“I don’t know what a nightly curfew is,” Lion tells the Kan public broadcaster. “For two months we’ve been warning about mass weddings in the eastern part of the city. When we speak about a nightly curfew in Ramot, a neighborhood of 55,000 residents, it means they’re going into lockdown because of about 300 patients. I can’t explain that to the residents.”

The Eilat municipality has waged a campaign that has prevented a curfew on the entire city, but now also says it is trying to cancel the decision to close one neighborhood, arguing that even that step “makes no sense.”