A violent assailant deliberately rammed the vehicle of Beitar Illit Deputy Mayor Gedalia Eisenstein during Wednesday's Haredi convoy protest and then physically choked him, sending the official to the hospital for emergency medical evaluation.
Witnesses at the scene described a targeted attack: the driver intentionally collided with Eisenstein's car, then exited his vehicle and began strangling the deputy mayor with force. Eisenstein, who also serves as chairman of the city's Hasidic faction, was transported to hospital for urgent tests to rule out internal injuries.
MK Meir Porush, chairman of the Shomrei Emunim movement, reached Eisenstein by phone while the deputy mayor was still undergoing medical evaluation. "Gedalia, you are in a public role that sanctifies God's name, and through you God's name was sanctified," Porush told him, according to a readout from the committee's spokesperson. "The rabbis said to go out and protest, so we go out and protest. We don't check what will happen along the way, whether they'll hit us or not. We are fighting here so that Torah scholars won't be imprisoned. That's what we want."
Haredi communal leaders responded with outrage, directing sharp criticism at law enforcement and demanding police stop what they described as deliberate harassment of a legitimate, peaceful demonstration, and instead move forcefully against those perpetrating violence against protesters. Several warned that failure to act against the attackers risked a far graver incident.
The assault on Eisenstein was one of several violent confrontations during the day's convoy demonstration, which drew more than 2,000 vehicles from 19 staging points across the country in protest of the arrest of Haredi draft evaders.
