Haredi anti-draft protest convoys shut down Israeli highways for hours, trigger violent clashes

Major portions of key highways across Israel came to a standstill on Wednesday afternoon, amid a country-wide protest of dozens of convoys of ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) men who converged on IDF Military Prison 10 near at the Beit Lid junction to protest recent arrest of draft dodgers.

The protest included some 1,000 cars, according to the police, and triggered dozens of clashes along the protest routes, as local residents tried to block the convoys and motorists on the highways attacked the intentionally slow-moving protest vehicles.

Israel Police accused the demonstrators of not adhering to “the agreements previously made with the protest organizers,” while the organizers blamed the police for “infringing upon the right to protest, including the issuing of fines.”

The large-scale protest was organized by the Gur Hasidic dynasty, the most influential faction within Agudat Yisrael, the Hasidic half of the Haredi United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party.

On Highway 1 between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, traffic was stopped completely by the slow movement of about 100 protest vehicles. On Thursday morning, the police announced that two suspects were detained for allegedly threatening protesters with handguns in the Jerusalem area.

עשרות אלפים נתקעו בפקקים במחאת החרדים נגד מעצר עריקים, ועימותים נרשמו בכמה מוקדים. מארגני המחאה מסרו: "זו הייתה הצלחה גדולה" | הדיווח של @daniel_grovais #מהדורתכאןחדשות עם @mayarachlin pic.twitter.com/mLZonPcgbM

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) June 24, 2026

Clashes were also reported from Arad, Kiryat Ono, and Kfar Yona, where residents had vowed to block the convoys from driving through their town to reach the nearby prison.

A pregnant woman was moderately injured by a car crash caused by the protest near Sha’ar HaGai on Highway 1, when she slammed into the rear of a slow-moving protest vehicle.

A spokesman for Beitar Illit Deputy Mayor Gedalyahu Eisenstein later told The Times of Israel that “one of the people who was angry about the signs got out, blocked him, and tried to pull him out of the vehicle by force. He went for medical checks and afterward returned to participate in the protest.”

Yitzhak Goldknopf, leader of Agudat Yisrael and UTJ, was filmed using his government-issued vehicle to lead one of the columns, driving under the legal speed limit while illegally using the emergency lights on his car.

MK Yitzchak Goldknopf, who is leading the protest convoy on Highway 1, says from his vehicle: “It is inconceivable that in Bulgaria a bochur can sit and learn Torah without interference, but not in the Jewish state. We have come out to fulfill the mitzvah of protest.” pic.twitter.com/DReVQcXSFK

— Moshe Schwartz (@YWNReporter) June 24, 2026

In a video recorded during the protest, Goldknopf hailed the demonstrators’ conduct while slamming “those who chose to act violently toward the protest participants simply because they sought to exercise their democratic right to protest.”

He also drew strong criticism for saying, “It is inconceivable that in Bulgaria a young man can sit and study Torah without interference, but not in the Jewish state. We set out to fulfill the mitzvah of protest."

The demonstrations drew strong criticism from opposition leaders as well as reservists’ groups.

Ayelet HaShahar Seidof, leader of the “Mothers on the Frontline” movement, told Ynet News on Thursday morning that her group plans to block the Haredi city of Bnei Brak in revenge for what she said were “riots, not demonstrations.”

“Blockades will be answered with blockades. We will block it before the start of Shabbat and disrupt the lives of those people… We have seen that at every ultra-Orthodox protest, a disaster has occurred. They have no regard for their own human lives! The Israeli public is fed up with their behavior, and if they do not connect with reality and begin to understand that there are state laws—and if the police do not restore order—we will restore order and disrupt their lives. We did not send our children to die defending the homeland for this,” Seidof said.

Naftali Bennett, leader of the Together party, wrote on X that he was “two and a half hours in traffic right now with my family.”

Opposition leaders largely blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the situation.

“The demonstration against conscription to the IDF is by Netanyahu's coalition partners,” charged opposition leader, Yair Lapid.

מורשת נתניהו: הציבור הלא עובד והלא משרת משתק את המדינה ומשבית את המגזר העובד והמשרת, בסופו של יום עבודה.

בקרוב זה יגמר.
הממשלה הבאה תפעל לפי האינטרסים הלאומיים של מדינת ישראל, ולא לפי האינטרסים של דרעי, גפני וגולדקנופף. pic.twitter.com/uHfL54mr6g

— Gadi Eisenkot - גדי איזנקוט (@gadi_eisenkot) June 24, 2026

“Instead of telling them—those who do not enlist will not receive a single shekel from the state, while soldiers are being killed every day in Lebanon—he gives them more and more of the money from the working and serving public so that they won't enlist in the IDF,” he said.

Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot, who most polls see as the leading opposition figure at the moment, wrote on X: “Netanyahu's Legacy: The non-working and non-serving public is paralyzing the country and crippling the working and serving sector, at the end of a workday.”

“The next government will act according to the national interests of the State of Israel, and not according to the interests of [Haredi leaders] Deri, Gafni, and Goldknopf,” he vowed.

Meanwhile, the protest organizers celebrated the demonstrations as a success that sent the “resounding message: Enough! There is no path forward without the path of Torah! The Haredi public has ceased to remain silent in the face of the trampling of the Torah world and the imposition of sanctions, and will stand firmly for its rights.”