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Israeli police said Thursday that dozens of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men had been detained after they stormed the home of a Supreme Court judge in protest at the arrest of draft-dodgers from their community.

The attack targeted Noam Sohlberg, deputy president of the Supreme Court, and took place late on Wednesday in the settlement of Alon Shvut in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

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Police commissioner Lieutenant General Daniel Levi “strongly condemns the acts of violence” at the home of Sohlberg, police said in a statement on Thursday.

“The right to protest must not turn into acts of violence, causing damage, or harming public officials.”

In a late Wednesday statement police said dozens of “rioters disturbed the peace and damaged the home and property” of Sohlberg.

“Police officers who arrived at the scene detained dozens of suspects and brought them in for questioning,” the statement said.

Images published by Israeli media showed smashed windows, shattered flowerpots near the entrance to the house, and a vehicle with a broken windshield.

The protesters were demonstrating against recent arrests of young ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who failed to report to enlistment centers after being called up for military service.

Sohlberg has repeatedly criticized the police during court debates for not acting harshly enough against draft-dodgers.

Visibly shaken by the incident, Sohlberg’s wife Meira told Israeli reporters outside her home that she and her husband “are children of Holocaust survivors” and asked, “How can it be that Jews hurt one another like this?”

In April, a group of ultra-Orthodox protesters against conscription stormed the home of Israel’s military police chief Brigadier General Yuval Yamin, barricading themselves in his garden.

That protest drew furious condemnation from the top brass of the military and political establishment.

In recent weeks, police have stepped up arrests of ultra-Orthodox men avoiding conscription.

There is a long-standing exemption from compulsory national service for ultra-Orthodox men who engage in full-time religious study, which dates back to Israel’s founding in 1948.

However, the Supreme Court has repeatedly challenged the exemption in recent years, culminating in a 2024 ruling that the government must conscript ultra-Orthodox men.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, relies on the support of ultra-Orthodox parties to sustain his government and so has fought efforts to end the exemption.

Read more:

Ultra-Orthodox protesters block roads and trains across Israel over military draft

Israel court orders govt. to penalize ultra-Orthodox Jews who refuse draft