Does the army have a place to imprison deserters? Against the backdrop of the draft law, criminal sanctions, and the arrest of yeshiva students who did not report to the draft office and were defined as deserters, the following story is being published, which illustrates the army's helplessness in imprisoning deserters.
According to Amir Bohbot's report on the website Walla, 10 deserting soldiers arrived at the gates of Prison 4 in Tzirifin on Sunday to surrender themselves to the military police, but were not allowed inside. Yesterday, only two of them, a soldier and a woman, were admitted, but the others remained to wait outside, apparently due to a lack of space at the base.
The deserters waited for long hours, kicking in the doors, and at midnight their families decided to return home. When night came, the deserters asked that they at least get beds so that they wouldn't have to sleep on the floor outside the prison, but the guards didn't respond. According to one of them, they were told that there was no room and so the soldiers in the prison were instructed to ignore them. Their request was also not granted at other bases inside Tzirifin.
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Shifra Shachar from the Beit Ham for Every Soldier organization told Walla: "Last night, about ten soldiers arrived at Prison 4 with the aim of turning themselves in after deserting their units due to extremely difficult financial and family circumstances." According to her, "The army completely disowned them during the desertion and the organization helped them. Now, after they asked to turn themselves in about 24 hours ago, no one is paying attention to them. This is an unthinkable reality.".
An IDF spokesperson told Walla!: "IDF prison bases accept prisoners 24 hours a day. The soldiers who arrived in recent days at the prison at the Tzirifin base were accepted after a few hours.".
So where exactly will the thousands of yeshiva students be imprisoned? The IDF has solutions.
