The leaders of the Knesset’s Haredi factions slammed the police for arresting ultra-Orthodox draft evaders on Wednesday, with Degel HaTorah chairman Moshe Gafni instructing local party representatives on regional councils across the country to halt all cooperation with law enforcement and Agudat Yisrael leader Yitzhak Goldknopf calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to rein in the police.

“Following the change in policy by the Israel Police, and so that we do not, God forbid, become complicit in harming the holy Torah and those who study it, I request that you immediately halt all cooperation with the Israel Police, including the municipal policing units, until further notice,” Gafni wrote.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid condemned Gafni’s call for “anarchy,” stating it was “further proof of why cooperation with the ultra-Orthodox parties is forbidden.”

“Their attempts to undermine the very existence of the State of Israel are disgraceful. They should sit in the opposition,” Lapid said in a statement.

According to the hardline Jerusalem Faction, three yeshiva students were arrested for draft evasion overnight before the group’s Tzeva Shachor anti-conscription hotline could send out a warning and mobilize “community activists” in order “to prevent the handover.”

Following the arrests, the ultra-Orthodox group reported that activists had arrived to protest outside the home of the security chief of the IDF’s Neve Tzedek Military Prison near Beit Lid, prompting the use of tasers and tear gas. A video shared by the group showed yeshiva students using a hat to fan the face of a young man lying down on the sidewalk. The Times of Israel was unable to verify the video. There was no comment from police.

In an email, the Jerusalem Faction said that protesters believed that “if military police officers and enforcement officials experience firsthand a fraction of what they do to the families and the Torah scholars, perhaps they will repent” and that such protests would continue “as long as the arrests of yeshiva students persist.”

Last month, 25 Haredim were arrested after demonstrators affiliated with the Jerusalem Faction breached the home of the head of the IDF’s Military Police in order to protest the detention of yeshiva students who have evaded........

© The Times of Israel