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⚡️ Haredim protesters blocked the Geha road at around 8:30am local time, as the group from the Hertzpanikim faction protested the arrest of an Haredi deserter this week who was sentenced to 14 days in a military prison.
🔹 During the rush hour traffic, Haredim Jews sat and stood across the road to block any movement on Rout 4 in the Bnei Brak area of Israel, as a police officer declared an illegal demonstration via a loudspeaker.
🔹 By this time, Route 4 had been closed to traffic from Em HaMoshavot to Aluf Sadeh in both directions, with police officers on site directing traffic to alternative routes.
🔹 Yair Lapid said on X: “Aryeh Deri sits on the cabinet and sends our children to fight and die for the country, and then he goes out and sends his children to block roads against IDF recruitment,” adding that all this happened with the consent of Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben-Gvir: “This moral stain will never be removed from this government,” he wrote.
🔹 Shas Chairman, Rabbi Aryeh Deri, attacked Ben Gvir following the police activity: “Itamar Ben-Gvir, wake up! It is unacceptable that what the police did not do at Kaplan against the anarchists who sought to destroy the country, they are now doing against citizens who cry out they have been turned into criminals just because they study the Torah.”
🔹 Deri said: “You know we oppose the protests, but we cannot stand in the face of this injustice and severe violence,” adding that Ben-Gvir had proven that when it mattered, he knew how to activate the police: “Get up now and stop the police violence against the Torah students,” he urged.
🔹 Around 9:30am local time, police reported that Geha road had reopened in both directions, however, reports began to circulate of police brutality, including the use of stun grenades, to disperse the crowd.
🔹 MK Meir Porush joined the attack on the police: “The police conduct this morning doesn’t correspond to the conduct of a police force in a country under Jewish rule, nor a police force in a country claiming to be a democracy,” he said: “Violent dispersal of protests as we saw this morning, we know from Turkey and Iran,” adding the police commissioner and any officer or commander who was involved should ‘go home today!’
🔹 Porish later demanded an urgent discussion in the National Security Committee in writing, on the topic ‘The police’s discriminatory enforcement policy in protests.’
🔹 MK Yoav Ben-Tzur from Shas also slammed the police actions: “The Israel police conducts a selective and discriminatory enforcement system,” he said: “At the Kaplan protests, they shout through loudspeakers, and at Haredi protests, they use batons and stun grenades,” Ben-Tzur added, calling on the Minister of Public Security to investigate the policy today: “These are protesters, not terrorists – the blood of the Haredim is not forfeit.”
🔹 Words came as protesters began to report to local media of violence used against them, including the use of stun grenades and batons, while clothes had been torn when protesters had been dragged from the road, and one video showed a police officer kicking a protester’s head and another dragged him on the road, and claims that the officer was the Commander of the Bnei Brak-Ramat Gan police station, Deputy Commissioner Yuval Shavit.
🔹 National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir responded to the claims in a post on X, saying: “Recently, there has been an increase in incidents where stun grenades were used against the civilian population not according to regulations, and therefore I will hold an urgent discussion on the matter to ensure that the use of stun grenades is only in exceptional cases and in accordance with police procedures,” adding: “If the use is not limited to these cases, there will be no stun grenades in the police.”
🔹 Ben-Gvir later attacked Deri: “From the first day of the government, I demanded to fire the Attorney General, who persecutes the Haredim and protects the Kaplan protesters, but you and your friends protected her because you thought you were smarter,” adding: “Unfortunately, you realised too late and the hard way that the flattery towards her costs the Haredi public dearly.”
🔹 Rabbi Deri responded: “Itamar, a lie repeated over and over does not become a truth, it remains a lie – we supported the dismissal of the anarchist legal advisor from day one, demanded her dismissal, and all members of the Shas faction signed this demand,” Deri said.
🔹 Deri added: “And what is the meaning of the evasion regarding Miara? She has already been dismissed for a year – you are the minister responsible for the police and you bear the responsibility – the one who uses severe violence this morning is not the legal advisor, but the police officers under your command.”
🔹 Protests are due to take place by Haredim Jews on Wednesday, with an advisory published including an equipment list to carry extra pairs of pants, following those who had torn clothes in the protest during the morning.
🔹 A police source told N12 that the discourse about tearing the protesters’ pants is inflammatory and unfair: “During the evacuation of the protesters, as part of removing disorderly individuals, clothes were torn unintentionally,” the source said, adding: “The attempts to present it as if there was any deliberate intention to tear the protesters’ clothes is ridiculous.”
