This is the dramatic moment two Israeli female soldiers were rescued after they were chased by 1,000 ultra-Orthodox men.

Footage from the incident on Sunday afternoon showed a handful of officers shielding the two women as they fled the mob in the Charedi city of Bnei Brak, east of Tel Aviv.

More than 20 people were arrested after the rioters overturned a patrol car and set fire to a police motorcycle.

The women could be seen running away from the angry mob, through streets strewn with rubbish and overturned bins.

The soldiers, squad commanders at the Education and Youth Corps, had been on an official home visit to one of the troops in their unit when they were confronted by the rioters. 

Reports indicate that they had been mistaken for military police trying to deliver army conscription orders.  

Since Israel’s founding in 1948, military service has been compulsory for almost all Israeli Jews, bar the ultra-Orthodox. 

They instead dedicate themselves to religious study and receive heavy state subsidies to finance an independent education system that eschews science for a focus on the Torah. 

The war in Gaza – which led to elongated reserve duty and the death of hundreds of soldiers – has spurred on calls from the secular mainstream to reform the system, causing uproar within the ultra-Orthodox community.

Footage from the incident on Sunday afternoon showed a handful of officers shielding the two women as they fled the mob in the Charedi city of Bnei Brak, east of Tel Aviv

More than 20 people were arrested after the rioters set fire to a police motorcycle

A police vehicle was overturned by the mob 

Israeli Prime Minister condemned the attack as ‘completely unacceptable’, adding that the perpetrators were an ‘extreme minority that does not represent the entire Charedi community’.

‘We will not allow anarchy, and we will not tolerate any harm to IDF servicemen and security forces who carry out their duties with dedication and determination,’ he wrote in a post on X.

The female soldiers were forced to hide behind bins as police ran to the scene on foot.

When officers left their vehicles unattended, rioters overturned a patrol car and set a police motorcycle ablaze.

Unrest continued even after the women were rescued, as the crowd pelted law enforcement with stones and burned bins.

Large police forces were deployed to the scene, including riot officers, who used stun grenades to quell the chaos.

IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir condemned the incident, referencing the ‘intolerable reality’ in which the attack took place.

‘A reality in which IDF soldiers, men and women, cannot move freely within the State of Israel is an intolerable reality that must be addressed,’ Zamir told the female soldiers. 

‘We will not accept harm to our soldiers, and I expect that the law will be fully enforced against those who harmed you.’

Large police forces were deployed to the scene, including riot officers, who used stun grenades to quell the chaos

Unrest continued even after the women were rescued, as the crowd pelted law enforcement with stones and burned bins

Israeli police detain an ultra-Orthodox man in Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv on Sunday

A stun grenade explodes during clashes between police and ultra-Orthodox men

Police arrested 23 rioters, while three officers were injured during the commotion.

The motorcycle that the crowd set on fire contained a tefillin and a prayer book in its luggage box – ritual items which were burned to a crisp in the attack.

Ultra-Orthodox leaders have condemned the events, warning that the incident might harm the community’s anti-conscription attempts.

Yitzhak Goldknopf, chairman of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, said he was shocked by the videos and said the violence was ‘contrary to the Torah’.

His Sephardic counterpart, Shas head Aryeh Deri, said the riot would ‘harm the entire Charedi public, cause a desecration of God’s name, and inflict heavy damage on the righteous struggle for the Torah world’.

One of the female soldiers told the Walla news outlet that she had asked her commanders not to send them into Bnei Brak, but was given no choice. 

In October last year, hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Israelis took part in a ‘march of the million’ in Jerusalem, against changes to a law exempting them from military service. 

The Israeli government is now debating draft legislation that would require ultra-Orthodox men not in full-time religious study to serve in the army. 

In 1998, Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled that the defence minister had no right to exempt the Charedim from conscription, and called on the government to find ways to draft them.

Temporary arrangements to continue blanket exemption were formally ended by the court last year, forcing the government to begin conscripting members of the community. 

But ultra-Orthodox leaders continue to resist change. In March 2024, following High Court orders to withhold state funds for yeshivahs whose students dodge conscription, Israeli rabbis went to the US to raise $100 million dollars in private funding.

In January 2025, the first 50 members of the IDF’s new Hasmonean Brigade for ultra-Orthodox troops were drafted.

A year later, the brigade declared its first battalion operational, following a recent drill in the Golan Heights. 

Despite opposition to enlistment from leading Charedi rabbis, the brigade aims to prove that military service can go hand in hand with ultra-Orthodox observance. 

Over the past seven decades, the Charedi community has more than doubled its share of Israel’s population, and now accounts for 14 per cent.

By 2050, almost one in four Israelis will be a member of the ultra-Orthodox community, a new report by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) claimed.