Tonight (Friday) the night curfew imposed by the government for the days of Purim began. In Bnei Brak, near midnight, clashes broke out with police, during which hundreds of ultra-Orthodox people set fire to bins and set fire to garbage. Tel Aviv District Police officers entered the same streets and evacuated the crowd as firefighters engaged in firefighting. Police tonight distributed over 1,300 reports to violators of various guidelines.
Some of the cases in which enforcement was carried out by police officers against violators of regulations and quarantine directives:
- During the night, a Purim party was located in a hotel in the area of Haneviim Street in Jerusalem, which was attended by about 250 participants who began to disperse when the police arrived. The event organizer, the dancer and the owner of the place were detained and reports were reported for violating the regulations.
- Another Purim party was located and scattered in an apartment on Yael Street in Pisgat Ze’ev in which several dozen people participated, reports were filed for a person who rented the place (NIS 5,000) and 6 reports against those who spent time there for violating the corona regulations.
- Another Purim party was located on Harkavim Street in Jerusalem, in which several dozen people participated, 14 reports were recorded for violating regulations and a suspect was detained for insulting police officers who worked there.
- Another Purim party in which several dozen people participated in the building on Horkania Street in Jerusalem was located and dispersed. In this incident, more than 50 reports were recorded against the participants and the organizers. Among other things, 3 suspects were summoned to supply alcohol to the minors, a lot of alcohol was confiscated and a suspicion of violating isolation was identified.
- In the building on Martin Buber Street in Jerusalem, a party was located and several dozen partygoers participated. The party was dispersed and reports were filed against 27 people and a report totaling NIS 5,000 against the building owner.
- During an enforcement operation conducted by the police in the Mahane Yehuda market against the consumption of alcohol by minors, an alcohol spill was carried out, following which a glass bottle was thrown at a police officer (without casualties) by a suspect who fled the scene. During the scans, the suspect was not located and investigative actions began to locate him.
- A party with dozens of people was found in a house on Jordan River Street in Beit Shemesh. Upon arrival of police forces most of the passers-by fled the scene. Some of them were enforced for violating regulations and reports were recorded.
- A large crowd was located on Rival Street in Beit Shemesh, during which a suspect was arrested and two more were detained after violating the order and attacking police officers. Dozens of reports of violations of regulations were recorded in the activity of the police forces there.
Police checkpoint to enforce closure (Photo: Yonatan Zindel, Flash 90)Sources in the Ministry of Health sharply criticized the police for the mass events that took place across the country yesterday and Tuesday, even before the weekend events and the Purim and Tishim celebrations in Jerusalem, which will be held on Sunday. “Why do we even impose restrictions if in the end everyone does what they want?”, Said a senior health ministry official. “Where were the police at all these incidents? Hundreds of citizens congregate on major streets and there is no enforcement. This is lawlessness. “
Health Minister Yuli Edelstein was furious. “Those who celebrate the contagion parties need to know – a spike in illness will be registered in your name, business closure will be because of you, loss of human life will be on your conscience,” he said. “You see the situation, how young people also fall into a serious illness, how death reaches every age. Recover, it’s not too late. ” Edelstein told Maariv: “It is forbidden to be forgiving of any violation of instructions on Purim. Not for contagion parties or tishim. This is a deliberate spread of an epidemic and it should not be taken lightly.”
Corona projector Prof. Nachman Ash also condemned: “We warn every day on every possible stage about the importance of adhering to guidelines and maintaining the health of us all in order to defeat the dangerous epidemic, and at the end we encounter the outrageous images of irresponsible mass celebrations and gatherings. The responsibility is also in the hands of the public, and it is very unfortunate that this is how they choose to behave these days, when the morbidity figures are still high. “
Yesterday morning, the police issued a statement stating that 31 parties across the country were thwarted and 33 suspects were questioned with a warning after being located in the planning stages of underground parties. Among the parties that were thwarted was a nature party planned in the Judean Desert, and a 22-year-old man was arrested and confiscated amplification equipment and alcohol, but the pictures of the mass parties overshadow the achievements. In the moment of truth, when masses of young people were celebrating in Tel Aviv, the policemen were not there, and when they had already arrived, what was left for them was to try to disperse the crowds and register fines.