Military police arrived after midnight Tuesday night at the Modiin home of a student at Yeshivas Or HaChaim, headed by Rav Reuven Elbaz shlita, in an attempt to arrest him as a 'deserter' from the IDF. The bochur is twenty days away from his wedding.
The arrest attempt and a Tzeva Shachor alert brought hundreds of protesters to the scene, including Modiin residents and demonstrators who arrived from Modiin Illit, Yerushalayim, Beit Shemesh and other cities. Roshei yeshiva from Or HaChaim arrived at the building, along with bochurim and protesters, in protest of the attempted arrest.
The protesters confronted police forces who tried to block the entrance to the building, and at one point some of them succeeded in entering the building and reaching the 11th-floor apartment where the bochur was staying.
At the same time, police began rushing reinforcements from nearby cities in a procedure known as 'intensive care', in which patrol cars are rushed from nearby stations. Despite the arrival of the reinforcements, hundreds more bochurim continued to arrive at the scene in an attempt to prevent the arrest.
At one point dozens of protesters remained on the 11th floor, together with the military police soldiers and Israel Police officers, in an attempt to prevent the arrest and bring about the withdrawal of the forces from the scene.
The military police soldiers remained inside the building, and police announced that large forces were operating at the scene 'to extract the soldiers and restore public order'.
According to the bochur's rebbi, Rav Dor Salti: "Two minutes before midnight the military police soldiers knocked on the door and his sister opened it. They didn't let him change clothes, because he was already in pajamas."
