On Saturday night and continuing through Sunday, Israel Police have been operating in haredi neighborhoods across the country in order to enforce government regulations designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Confrontations broke out in several places between local residents and police and several arrests were made.
On Sunday morning, police broke into a synagogue affiliated with the “Peleg Yerushalmi” Lithuanian haredi community (followers of Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach ztz”l) in Modi’in Illit, and broke up other communal prayers in synagogues in Ashdod and Beitar Illit. They also discovered a large Chassidic gathering in the Kretchnif synagogue in Kiryat Gat.
According to a police spokesperson, “Yesterday, we received a report of noise from a synagogue belonging to the Kretchnif Chassidut in Kiryat Gat. Police arrived and discovered people gathered in contravention of the government’s emergency guidelines. Police informed those gathered of the law and the gathering dispersed. This morning [Sunday] police were again operating in the neighborhood and again discovered an illegal gathering for the purposes of communal prayer in the same locale. The Admor was given an official warning and informed that gatherings of such a nature are forbidden due to the emergency regulations. Those gathered dispersed and three people who disturbed the police in the course of their duties were issued with citations.”
In another statement, a police spokesperson described operations conducted on Saturday night: “Police operated in Jerusalem throughout the night in order to ensure that the local community was abiding by the lockdown regulations. Four people were arrested for disrupting the public order and for contravening the guidelines.
“Police and Border Police issued a number of citations as well as warnings that certain gatherings were forbidden and must cease. One confrontation erupted on the corner of Shivtei Yisrael and Bar Lev Streets [Highway 1] when several dozen [fringe] youth clashed with police who arrested four and took them for questioning.”
