Rabbi Dov Lior of Hebron has issued a halachic permission to use mobile phones on Shabbat to report the movement of troops. The troops in question are the IDF, seeking to destroy outposts.
Shabbat may be generally violated only in the face of enemy attack, and Rabbi Lior has thus declared IDF an enemy army—which, from the settlers’ perspective, it really is.
The halachic prohibition on using mobile phones is very weak. They are banned as a “non-Shabbat activity,” rather than as one of the types of prohibited labor.
