The IDF is preparing for mass arrests of haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft dodgers, to begin as early as next week, KAN News reported on Wednesday.
The military has requested police assistance, which will hold situational assessments alongside the military, in preparation for possible disturbances.
According to estimates, hundreds of police officers will be assisting, said KAN.
“These days, joint planning work is taking place with the Israel Police to coordinate the Military Police’s enforcement activities in the public sphere. We emphasize that coordination is critical and affects the areas in which the IDF can operate to carry out arrests,” said the IDF.
Israel Police chief Daniel Levy has previously refused to allocate police for these kinds of operations, according to KAN. However, a recent meeting of the High Court of Justice criticized the police for a lack of enforcement in past protests.
In response, Degel HaTorah party chairman MK Moshe Gafni called on party members throughout the country to stop cooperating with police.
“Following the change in Israel Police policy, and so that we will not, God forbid, be partners in harming the holy Torah and those who study it, I ask that cooperation with the Israel Police, including municipal policing, be stopped immediately, until further notice,” Gafni said.
Netanyahu to Hasmonean Brigade: 'Studying Torah and serving adds strength'
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the IDF’s Hasmonean Brigade during a visit to the Jordan Valley on Thursday that those who do not study Torah must enlist in the military.
The Brigade was founded in order to accommodate haredi soldiers previously exempt from conscription.
"I respect the world of Torah because generations of my ancestors and your ancestors preserved Israel's heritage through Torah study. But those who do not study Torah must enlist,” said Netanyahu. "And when they enlist, they must be granted the right to enter as haredi and leave as haredi.”
Netanyahu told the soldiers that serving and studying Torah connect two worlds and continue the legacy of the Hasmoneans. “This only adds strength,” he said, “the fact that you can study Torah and serve, maintain a religious haredi lifestyle, and serve, hold the sword of David and serve, and also study. This is the very thing that strengthens us more than anything else.”
The prime minister also commended the brigade, adding that he had visited the base when the soldiers were entering their training course, and he was now witnessing their graduation.
“You are the pioneers, and others are following in your footsteps. I see it. I see the great increase in enlistment and in this desire to defend the State of Israel,” he told the troops.
Netanyahu also touched upon the seven-front war that Israel is currently living in, adding that there have been monumental achievements. “These achievements, he said, “come first and foremost from faith, from the spirit, and also from the power, the tools, the technology, and the weapons, but in the end, or rather at the very beginning, this comes from the Hasmonean spirit. You are Hasmoneans!"
The Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman MK Boaz Bismuth, who was also in attendance, said he was “very moved” to be at the base.
“We are in a place where a real revolution is taking place; we are witnessing something amazing and moving,” he said. “Our two greatest values are the Torah that brought us here and the IDF that protects us. On this base, these two things connect, Torah with uniforms.
“This is happening on your watch,” Bismuth told Netanyahu. “This revolution cannot be stopped."