During operational activity today, Sunday, to enforce Covid-19 restrictions in the city of Bnei Brak, a large group of local residents gathered around police. Several of the protesters threw stones at the policemen operating at the scene, and one of them who reportedly felt his life was in danger pulled out his gun and shot in the air. There were no casualties. Hundreds of people affiliated with the "Yerushalmi Faction" are protesting today in Bnei Brak and Ashdod against enforcement at educational institutions. One of the leaders of the faction, Rabbi Asher Deutsch, explained, "Following the decision of the authorities to narrow the steps of the haredi public in any way, using violent and dark methods reserved for regimes we thought disappeared from the world, and following the deliberate and shameful harassment of synagogues, Talmudei Torah [elementary schools] and yeshivas, which are the bedrock of the Jewish People's existence, we will protest these criminal moves, and publicly proclaim that the voice of the Torah and prayer cannot be silenced in the Jewish People." In his remarks, he referred to the location of the protest in Bnei Brak. "The protest will begin at the intersection of Rabbi Akiva - Rabbi Shach streets, near the Itzkovich Synagogue, and will continue to spread as far as possible to other places." Later, a demonstration developed in Ashdod, near the Grodno yeshiva, where clashes with the police have taken place in recent days due to the opening of educational institutions.
