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Ultra-Orthodox Jews block highway to protest mandatory military service
Protesters sat on the highway and lay on the ground as police lifted and dragged them away. Officers mounted on horseback charged into the crowd. Many demonstrators held signs and chanted “To prison! Not to the army!”
The Supreme Court this week ordered the government to begin drafting ultra-Orthodox men saying the system of military exemptions is unequal.
“We all came here for one goal, we reflect the position of all the Orthodox public,” said a young man, identifying himself only by his first name, Ozer. “All the Orthodox public prefers to go to prison and not to the army.”
Military service is compulsory for most Jewish men and women in Israel. But politically powerful ultra-Orthodox parties have won draft exemptions for their followers that allow them instead to study in religious seminaries.
This longstanding arrangement has bred widespread resentment among the broader public – a sentiment that has grown stronger during the bloody eight-month war on Gaza. The ultra-Orthodox see their full-time religious study as their part in protecting the state.
Israeli police disperse ultra-Orthodox Jewish men during a protest in Bnei Brak on Thursday
Israel’s Smotrich says government to promote illegal settlements
Israel’s hardline finance minister says the government will promote illegal West Bank settlements and punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority in response to its moves against Israel on the international stage.
Bezalel Smotrich, who heads a pro-settler party, said in a statement the government supports his proposal.
Among the steps Smotrich says he’s advancing is the revocation of “various approvals and benefits” for senior officials in the Palestinian Authority and approving new settlement buildings.
Smotrich claims cabinet approved legalisation for occupied West Bank ‘outposts’: Report
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has claimed that the security cabinet has approved his proposal to legalise five Israeli “outposts” in the occupied West Bank, The Times of Israel reports, citing Hebrew-language media reports.
The outposts – meaning illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian land built without official permission – that are reportedly set to be legalised are:
- Evyatar in the north of the occupied West Bank
- Sde Efraim and Givat Asaf in the centre of the occupied West Bank
- Heletz and Adorayim in the south of the occupied West Bank
Earlier, we reported that Smotrich said in a Thursday statement that the government will support illegal West Bank settlements as well as punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority in response to Palestinian diplomacy on the international stage critical of Israel.
There has been no official confirmation of Smotrich’s claims from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
Far-right Israelis celebrate claim that illegal outposts will be legalised
Far-right Israeli politicians are celebrating Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s claim that Israel’s security cabinet has approved his proposed legalisation of five illegal “outposts” on Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.
“I congratulate my friend Smotrich for leading the move, which I had the honour of co-initiating and taking part in preparing,” Orit Strock, settlements and national projects minister with Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party, posted on X.
The head of the Samaria Regional Council, Yossi Dagan, also said that the move was a “Zionist decision and a strong message of victory”. The head of the Binyamin Regional Council, Israel Gantz, also hailed the decision as a measure “that strengthens the State of Israel”.
