By JPOSTLEO GIOSUÈCOM STAFF, ABE SELIG
Despite plans by the Eda Haredit to move demonstrations to a weekday, some forty haredim arrived to protest in front of Intel's Har Hotzvim offices on Friday night over the company's operation of its Jerusalem microchip factory on Shabbat.
Police forces were deployed at the scene and no violations of the order were reported.
Rabbi Yosef Rosenfeld, a member of the Council for the Protection of the Sanctity of Shabbat, had said that protests this weekend would be much smaller in scale.
Rosenfeld, whose group is one of those leading the opposition to Intel's Shabbat operations, said that "only a small number" of protesters would take part in a Saturday demonstration opposite the plant.
"It won't be like last week or the week before that," Rosenfeld said. "The Eda [Haredit - another one of the groups that have organized the protests] is pushing to move the demonstrations to a weekday, so this weekend there will only be a few protesters."
Two weeks ago, thousands protested over the factory's operation.
Last Saturday, hundreds of haredim gathered at Jerusalem's Givat Moshe neighborhood to protest against the hi-tech giant's operation during Shabbat.
Several protesters clashed with police and with Intel's security guards, and called the policemen "Nazis" and "murderers." They also shouted "Shabbes" and attacked reporters at the scene.
Some of them hurled stones at the journalists and beat them. Two protesters were arrested during the demonstration.