Four Israeli Border Police officers have been jailed for “harming religion and Judaism” after having a barbecue on Shabbat.
The officers, who are all combat medics at a base near the Beit Horon settlement in the West Bank, were sentenced earlier in the week, according to Channel 12.
They were reportedly caught mid-barbecue by a religious non-commissioned officer in an area of the base away from the barracks last Friday night.
They are understood to have extinguished the fire after being confronted, but were reported to the base’s rabbi and a senior officer.
The officer then sentenced each of them to three weeks in the Beit Lid military prison, cut down to two weeks on appeal.
The sentence was then further reduced to one week after protests from parents and some politicians.
Keren Peretz, the mother of one of those imprisoned, told Kan: “Sending to prison is not proportional in any way. As far as I’m concerned, prison is for criminals, and they’re absolutely not in that category.”
And Democrats MK Gilad Kariv, who leads the Knesset’s informal religious liberties lobby, criticised the punishment on X, saying: “Israel is not a halacha state, and a Border Police officer is not entitled to punish troops for ‘harming religion and Judaism’.”
This was later echoed by Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, of Yesh Atid, who said: “Judaism is not something you force in the State of Israel through threats and arrests.
"Judaism is what connects us and makes us one nation.”
However, the Border Police said in a statement to Haaretz that the officers “acted contrary to directives and procedures, in the area of the base and in public”.
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