The case involving the prosecution of soldiers from the Rotem Battalion continues to remain on the agenda, and now their fellow soldiers are revealing a troubling picture of ongoing tensions between the company commanders and soldiers in the Hesder platoon.

In conversations with Israel National News - Arutz Sheva, soldiers said that the incident for which 15 soldiers were sentenced to ten days in military prison was not an isolated case, but part of a series of confrontations that have intensified in recent weeks.

According to them, about ten days ago, the company commander decided to hold a training exercise on Shabbat involving the evacuation of wounded soldiers and the opening of an intravenous line, despite what they said was no operational urgency that justified holding the exercise specifically on Shabbat.

The Hesder soldiers approached their commanders and asked that the exercise be postponed to another time, they said.

"We asked why it was necessary to carry out such an exercise on Shabbat when there was no professional or operational necessity for it," they said. "We did not receive a substantive answer."

According to the soldiers, they approached the brigade rabbi after Shabbat, and after hearing the details of the incident, he said that there was no reason to conduct such an exercise on Shabbat when it did not stem from an operational need.

The soldiers' friends also claim that there was no operational activity surrounding the most recent incident, in which the soldiers were tried after refusing to board a Namer armored personnel carrier in which a female paramedic was present. According to them, the incident was presented to the brigade rabbi as an operational activity, when in practice it was not an operational mission but routine activity.

"We feel that there is a deliberate attempt here to clash with the religious soldiers and the Hesder yeshiva students," the soldiers said. "Instead of finding solutions and enabling joint service based on mutual respect, time and again they choose confrontation."

According to them, these confrontations also carry an operational cost.

"The battalion commander has now lost 15 soldiers who were sent to ten days in military prison," one of them said. "Ultimately, one has to ask who will go into battle with him. At a time when the IDF needs every soldier, it is unfortunate that energy is being invested in internal confrontations instead of strengthening unity."

The soldiers stressed that they are committed to their military service and to security missions, but expect their commanders to respect their way of life and their halachic commitments as well, particularly when, they say, there is no operational need that justifies compromising them.