Galilee Residents Clear Meron Junction Blockade Over Buses Running on Shabbat

Dozens of Haredi demonstrators moved onto the roadway at Meron Junction on Saturday evening in protest of public buses that leave Safed's central station before Shabbat ends. For the first time since the northern protests began, secular residents of Galilee communities gathered opposite them and cleared demonstrators off the road so a bus could pass. Residents said they had told police they would do it themselves if officers did not intervene, and that protesters who stayed at the roadside calling out to drivers were not the issue. It was the third consecutive Saturday of blockades at the junction, part of a longer dispute over Sabbath observance in the public sphere.