The police arrested 30 Palestinian Arabs who were in Israel illegally and were employed as contract laborers at the new Glilot Big Fashion shopping center in northern Tel Aviv.
Some of the detainees worked at the shopping center as it prepared to open and others continued to be employed after it began operations.
The shopping center, which was built with an investment of over two billion shekels, opened to the public five days ago and has already been at the center of controversy due to the long lines and major traffic jams that it caused in the area, as well as the fact that it is open on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath. Despite the arrests, the police activity is not expected to affect the shopping center's operations and there is no intent to issue closure orders to its tenants.
The Chotam organization commented on the arrests: "It's no wonder that those who disrespect the faith of hundreds of thousands of Jews and opened the Big shopping center on Shabbat, violating a fundamental value of the people of Israel, would choose to endanger the security of customers at the facility and allow the employment of the enemy's citizens who can easily carry out a terror attack like the one that was miraculously prevented in Bat Yam."
Earlier in the week, MK Elazar Stern (Yesh Atid) mentioned the shopping center and wrote: "I do not wish them success. As long as commerce is open there on Shabbat, I will not set foot there," "Shabbat in the State of Israel has a special character for a vast majority of the population, Shabbat brings a social worldview and it might be the greatest message that the Jewish people have brought to the world."