Three Givati Brigade soldiers, all students of Hesder yeshivos, were sentenced Sunday night to 10 days in military prison after refusing to enter a Namer armored personnel carrier together with a female paramedic, sparking outrage among religious soldiers and their supporters.

The soldiers were tried by their battalion commander following the incident, which occurred during an operational activity last week. According to the soldiers, the circumstances did not involve an unfolding emergency or a life-saving situation that required them to enter the vehicle under those conditions.

During the nighttime operation, the company was preparing to conduct a patrol involving a Merkava tank and a Namer. A medical team that included the female paramedic was ordered to join the company commander’s command group and three additional soldiers inside the Namer. A source familiar with the incident told Walla that because of the extremely confined conditions inside the armored vehicle, it would be difficult for a religious soldier to avoid physical contact with a female soldier during the ride.

The punishment triggered furious condemnation from the organization “Wives of Soldiers for the Sanctity of the Camp,” which demanded the soldiers’ immediate release and accused the IDF leadership of persecuting religious soldiers for adhering to Torah and halacha. The group called the decision a disgrace and said the military cannot speak about recruiting Chareidim while religious soldiers already serving in the IDF are treated this way.

HaRav Dror Aryeh of the Sderot Hesder Yeshiva also sharply condemned the punishment, accusing Defense Minister Israel Katz of failing to protect dedicated soldiers. He said the soldiers were heroes who would not be broken by prison and argued that their commanders — rather than the soldiers — should have faced disciplinary proceedings for violating regulations and halacha.

Walla reported that the dispute was not the first recent clash between the battalion’s religious soldiers and their commanders. About a week and a half earlier, the company commander ordered a casualty-evacuation exercise on Shabbos that included inserting an IV. Soldiers from the yeshiva students’ unit objected, saying there was no operational necessity that justified performing the exercise on Shabbos.

According to the soldiers, they approached a military rav after Shabbos, who determined that the exercise should not have been conducted on Shabbos. The tensions then resurfaced with the Namer incident — ultimately resulting in the three soldiers being sentenced to 10 days behind bars.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)