Honenu Atty. Shimshilashvili; Photo credit: Honenu
Sunday, March 30, 2025, 12:01 Police officers and detectives from the Beitar Ilit Police Station accompanied by border police forces raided the hilltop community Mikneh Avraham in Gush Etzion on Shabbat. The residents were ordered to leave despite the major sabbath violation involved. The defense forces claimed that the site was classified as a closed military zone.
The residents were in the middle of afternoon prayers and tried to explain to the officers that they could not leave because they were Shabbat-observant. They added that until that moment, they had not known that the site was a closed military zone. The officers, who were not impressed by the residents’ objections, detained them one by one, and loaded them into police vehicles despite the Shabbat violation.
One of the youths who refused to enter the police vehicle was threatened with a taser. Later, he was dragged into the police station as the officers mocked his Shabbat observance by singing a song associated with Hareidi extremists, “We do not believe in the rule of apostates,” referring to the secular government of Israel. Other youths who were detained also described the humiliating treatment that they had received at the police station, including jeers at their clothing and slurs in public of them being “stinking [Jews].” Several of the residents who had been detained at the site were released at the police station with the assistance of Honenu Attorney Daniel Shimshilashvilli.
Attorney Shimshilashvilli leveled harsh criticism at the police: “The illegal conduct of those who are tasked with enforcing the law was disgraceful, particularly when it is obvious to anyone with any sense that Jewish communities in Yehuda and Shomron are a fortified wall against our enemies who took advantage of the Israeli abandonment of the Gaza Strip to carry out a massacre the likes of which we have not seen since the Holocaust. There are those who denigrate and harm hilltop youth whose only crime is their love of Israel and their belief in our rights to our land. We are here to verify that their rights are maintained. We will not allow any authority, whatever it may be, to take advantage of young Yehuda and Shomron residents and deplorably harm them.”