Thursday, August 27, 2015, 20:45 Very large numbers of police forces under the command of the Ramleh Police Station together with personnel from the Jewish Department of the GSS raided the Nof Ayalon community center on the afternoon of Thursday, August 27, as a conference was being held on the topic of the recent wave of administrative orders issued to activists from hilltops and outposts in Yehuda and Shomron.
The policemen detained five of the participants, all of them recipients of administrative orders, claiming that they had violated the prohibition stipulated in the orders of making
Conference at Nof Ayalon, note the partitions; Photo credit: Honenu
contact with certain people who were present at the conference. However it turned out that the recipients of the orders had done their research and by sitting behind partitions were not in violation of the law.
Nonetheless five participants were detained and taken for interrogation, at the end of which the police will decide whether or not to insist that they be brought to court even though they have not violated any law.
Among the participants of the conference were rabbis and other public figures including Professor Hillel Weiss, Rabbi Yo’el Shwartz (one of the founders of Nahal Hareidi), former Knesset Member Michael Ben Ari, Bentzi Gopstein, Baruch Marzel, attorney Itizik Bam, attorney Itamar Ben Gvir, Meir Bartler and representatives from Honenu. After the police raid the rabbi of Nof Ayalon, Rabbi Gidon Binyamin, came to the community center to give support to the participants of the conference.
After the conference Honenu stated that, “What occurred today is reminiscent of dark regimes. The police and the GSS are investing immense resources in harassing youth who devote their energies to the People and the Land of Israel. It turned out that there was no legal cause for the detentions due to the presence of the partitions which prevented the youths from making contact with each other. Our suggestion to the police commander who came to the scene with such large numbers of forces, is that he invest his resources in handling the crime rampant in the area over which the police station under his command is responsible and not in harassing innocent citizens.”
Itamar Ben Gvir: “When I arrived at the site I encountered a large number of forces which would be more suitable for an entry to Lebanon but unfortunately currently the policy of the Israeli government is to hassle the best of our youth. In any event the exercise carried out today will be taught in law schools. There was no violation of any order and [the raid] was a waste of police resources.”
Honenu attorney Adi Kedar, who is representing some of the detainees, stated that, “The Israeli Police continue to invest their time and energy in harassing Jewish youth instead of eliminating crime throughout the country. That is a shame and we hope that the new appointee [police commissioner] will bring about a change concerning this matter.”