A teenager has been arrested on suspicion of assaulting a soldier and his father last week in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem, police said Wednesday.
It was the second arrest made following the incident, after a first suspect was detained two days earlier.
The soldier was rescued by officers on May 21 after he drove his car into the predomitly ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood of Mea Shearim and was pelted with stones and garbage by several dozen extremists, police said.
He and his father escaped with minor injuries.
The second arrested youth tried to escape through his apartment’s window when officers came to seize him, police said.
Both suspects were expected to be brought to court to be remanded on Wednesday.
Israeli police officers clash with ultra-Orthodox Jews during a raid on an anti-draft office in the Mea Shearim neighborhood on August 8, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Some members of the ultra-Orthodox community are violently opposed to army service and the military in general.
Over the years, there have been frequent demonstrations by Haredi Jews against the draft. There have also been cases of soldiers being harassed and even assaulted when entering ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem.
In January, an ultra-Orthodox man was arrested on suspicion that he was part of a group who threw rocks at a car driven by a soldier in the town of Beit Shemesh, causing him to crash. The 21-year-old soldier was driving through the Ramat Beit Shemesh neighborhood of the city when a group of men started throwing rocks and bags of trash at his car. Police said the soldier lost control of the vehicle and drove into a lamppost.
Last June a former Knesset member’s soldier son was attacked in the capital’s Mea Shearim neighborhood.