Israeli police clashed with hundreds of ultra-Orthodox Jews overnight as they sought to enforce restrictions on public gatherings during a nationwide coronavirus lockdown, the police said Wednesday.
Footage released by police showed huge crowds of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem chanting and hurling stones and metal bars at police officers.
The police said 17 people were arrested.
Clashes also erupted in Modiin Ilit, an ultra-Orthodox settlement in the West Bank near Jerusalem.
Police said they ordered people to leave a synagogue before being attacked with stones and fireworks.
Four police officers were wounded and seven people were arrested, police said.
Segments of Israel's ultra-Orthodox community have defied restrictions on religious gatherings intended to contain the country's coronavirus outbreak, even as the insular community has seen its own cases soar.
Israel went into a second nationwide lockdown last month after developing one of the worst outbreaks in the world on a per capita basis.
The country currently has around 60,000 active cases, including 855 people hospitalized in serious condition.