MK Meir Porush (United Torah Judaism) submitted an urgent parliamentary query to Defense Minister Israel Katz regarding the arrest of yeshiva students and the conditions of their detention in the military prison.
The query was filed following the Defense Ministry’s admission this week that one of the detainees had been prevented from donning tefillin. In his submission, Porush demands to know what steps are being taken to draw lessons from the incident, whether responsibility will be assigned to those involved, why the arrests of yeshiva students are continuing, and what the Defense Minister’s position is on the matter.
Porush also asks why a designated wing for haredi detainees has not been established in the military prison, similar to wings for religious inmates in civilian prisons, and how the army is preparing for the possibility of arresting tens of thousands of yeshiva students.
Additional questions in the query address the detainees’ daily conditions: what kashrut procedures are in place in the military prison, whether three meals a day and mehadrin food are provided, how Shabbat meals are conducted, and whether detainees are permitted to spend time in the facility’s synagogue for Torah study.
MK Porush noted that he personally visited some of the detainees in the military prison and heard additional testimonies from those who were released. At the outset of his query, he wrote that “the very arrests of Torah scholars constitute an inconceivable phenomenon in a state under Jewish governance."
If the query is approved by the Knesset Speaker, the Defense Minister will be required to respond from the Knesset plenum next week.