After large ultra-Orthodox groups in recent days threatened a broad protest day, heavy traffic disruptions were recorded across Israel on Wednesday, though they were milder than the warnings suggested. The protest plan was to drive slowly toward Prison 10 near Kfar Yona, but police blocked access and the organizers eventually gave up, saying the event had been exhausted. Members of the ultra-Orthodox Knesset faction also joined and led the convoys, which left major roads nearly empty for a time.
On Route 1, traffic stopped for about 50 minutes after a convoy of more than 100 vehicles set out, and it resumed only after police arrived. In Arad, clashes were reported between secular and ultra-Orthodox youths, and near Kiryat Ono a Haredi man was filmed whipping a bus passenger with a rubber strap after the bus had to stop because of the protest. Later, organizers claimed a civilian aimed a gun at protesters on Route 1. About three hours after the convoys began, and after organizers had already announced the protest was over, a pregnant woman was moderately injured in a chain-reaction crash at Sha'ar Hagai on Route 1 when she hit the back of a vehicle that was part of the convoy. She was evacuated by ambulance with abdominal trauma.
Former minister and MK Yitzhak Goldknopf of Agudat Yisrael led a Jerusalem convoy after saying the political deal between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Shas chairman Aryeh Deri, and Degel HaTorah chairman Moshe Gafni would not help yeshiva students and threatening to “turn the state upside down.” He said, “It is unthinkable that in Bulgaria a boy can sit and study Torah without disturbance, and in the Jewish state not. We came to perform a mitzvah protest.” His driver was filmed using a siren without operational need.
The demonstrations came as reserve soldiers keep returning for repeated rounds of service, and their families say they are being trampled for coalition stability. “The government supports, at any cost, the message that reservists are not part of it,” said Rótzem Levi of Tel Aviv, chairwoman of the Reservists’ Wives Forum, adding that the state should be easing their burden rather than making it worse. Reserve Sgt. Maj. M., a fighter in Carmeli Brigade, has completed about 400 reserve days during the war and has already been called up for another 110 days in September. Nomi Alstein said her husband, Boaz, has done more than 300 reserve days in Brigade 417, is now on his fifth round, and is due to finish next week. “I’m out of words,” she said. “This is shameful, it is insulting, it is humiliating.”
