“The Western Wall is long enough to accommodate all parts of Israeli society. I am in favor of Orthodox leadership, but I am not in favor of Orthodox exclusivity,” the leader of the Blue and White party said in a video message.

“That’s why we made the arrangement of the extension,” Gantz continued. ”Poking a finger in the eye may give you a sense of satisfaction in an unjustified moment, but it causes long-term damage. So I am of course against these things as I do not think it should happen the other way around. There should be no demonstrations at the Western Wall when we have the intended extension for this on the other side.”

The Orthodox activists reportedly sang during the reading of the Book of Lamentations by the Conservative Jews, making it difficult to hear the reading, and also set up a gender-separation divider and prevented some of the Conservative worshippers from entering the site who had arrived later.

In a Facebook post about Tisha B’Av, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned of disunity, saying that the Jewish people have twice previously lost an independent state because of “civil wars and baseless hatred.”

“Now that we have, for the third time, an independent state, and we are in its eighth decade, we must do everything we can to preserve it — forever and ever,” Bennett said.