Secret meetings were recently held in Bnei Brak between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's envoy and haredi leaders. The meetings dealt with the controversy over the draft law, i24NEWS reported this evening (Thursday).
The two consecutive meetings that took place in recent days at the home of Degel Hatorah leaders Rabbi Dov Lando and Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch were aimed at bringing about American intervention in the matter of the arrest of yeshiva students.
The haredi leadership is relying on a precedent in which the US government intervened on the issue of lowering the mandatory military service age in Ukraine.
This evening, arrived at the Beit Lid Military Prison on Thursday to visit Refael and Baruch Itzhakov, yeshiva students from Tel Aviv who were arrested for not reporting to the IDF recruitment center.
The rabbi visited the prison despite his age because of the increased attention the arrest received in the haredi community.
According to associates of Rabbi Lando, the rabbi has held important meetings to discuss how to deal with the arrests of yeshiva students, and that he is "unable to sleep" while yeshiva students are in prison.