High Court nixes autopsies of babies found dead at daycare as Haredim riot in protest

The High Court of Justice ruled Tuesday that autopsies will not be performed on the two infants who died a day earlier in an unlicensed, overcrowded Jerusalem daycare facility, as ultra-Orthodox riots erupted in protest of the postmortems.

The court held a hearing on the petition Tuesday afternoon filed by the ultra-Orthodox ZAKA emergency service on behalf of the deceased infants’ families. The hearing included a phone call with the head of the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute, Dr. Chen Kugel, during a closed-door section of the proceedings.

The court ruled that an autopsy was not necessary if all other required tests, including needle-based procedures not involving surgery, were completed, and that the infants could be buried without further delay.

The ruling, issued by justices Alex Stein, Yechiel Kasher, and Ruth Ronen, overturned a decision by the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court to allow the autopsies, which law enforcement authorities had requested to determine the cause of death.

The families are ultra-Orthodox and opposed the autopsies on religious grounds. Jewish law in general proscribes autopsies because the human body is sacred and thus should not be tampered with after death, and urges that funerals be held as quickly as possible after a person dies. However, Jewish law does permit autopsies in some situations involving saving another life.

Dror Shoshim, the attorney who represented the families in court, described the ruling as “an important decision demonstrating humane sensitivity and respect for the dead,” according to a statement from ZAKA.

Police and the State Attorney’s Office had pushed for the autopsies to uncover the exact cause of death for 4-month-old Leah Goloventzitz and 6-month-old Aharon Katz, whose bodies were found on Monday morning, along with 53 other babies and toddlers with varying degrees of injuries at the overcrowded Haredi daycare center in Jerusalem’s Romema neighborhood.

Police reportedly believe the two babies may have died of heat exhaustion and dehydration linked to a faulty heating system in the daycare, but were looking to confirm their suspicions with forensic medical procedures.

On Monday, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court ruled in favor of the authorities’ request for an autopsy, triggering petitions from both families of the deceased children and ZAKA, arguing that the matter should be left to the families.

Meanwhile, ultra-Orthodox protesters staged a second wave of riots against the requested autopsies, as a judge extended the detention of the two suspects in the children’s deaths, who are facing reported charges of reckless homicide and negligence.

By late afternoon, police reported that 11 people were arrested, including one who bit an officer’s hand.

The riots were even more violent than the ones that took place in Jerusalem and the nearby Haredi-majority city of Beit Shemesh on Monday night.

חרדים קיצוניים חוסמים כעת כמה צמתים ברחבי ירושלים ומציתים פחים באזור גאולה ורחוב יחזקאל ותוקפים נהגי אוטובוסים, במחאה על ניתוח של התינוקת שנפטרה באסון ברוממה

(ענבר טויזר, חדשות 12) pic.twitter.com/PKFsh2nK3N

Advertisement

— חדר מלחמה (@waroomisrael) January 20, 2026

Police said the rioters threw rocks, set fire to trash cans, and damaged property while blocking roads.

According to police, the rioters “uprooted trees, set them on fire and threw them onto the road,” and caused “extensive damage” to infrastructure, including water pipes and street lights.

Officers used water cannons and other methods of crowd dispersal as the riots escalated. Around noon, police said rioters assaulted an elderly man on Bar Ilan Street in Jerusalem.

According to police, demonstrators blocked roads with rocks and threw the elderly man into the road after he tried to clear stones from the street. The incident was spotted in real time by police surveillance units.

Ultra-Orthodox rioters protesting the autopsies of two Haredi babies assault an elderly man in Jerusalem while he tries to clear rocks from the street, January 20, 2026. (Israel Police)

In a separate incident, police said officers arrested a suspect who was seen rolling rocks into the road in an apparent attempt to block traffic.

One 15-year-old boy was reportedly run over as he tried to block a car from driving along Bar Ilan Street in the capital. The boy suffered moderate injuries, and the driver was arrested, according to Hebrew media reports. Two weeks ago, a teenage Haredi protester died when he was run over by a bus amid rioting against the drafting of ultra-Orthodox men into the army.

Police said the rioters “crossed every red line,” accusing them of deliberately harming civilians and officers, and vowed to continue to act “with a firm hand” to restore public order and bring those involved to justice.

The extremist Jerusalem Faction, which has organized protests against the autopsies, published a list of other locations where rallies were to be held, including Netivot in the south, the central region locations of Elad and Modiin Illit, and Safed, Harish and Har Yona in the north.

Rioting continued into the evening, even after the High Court blocked the autopsies.

Police said they cleared an ultra-Orthodox demonstration on Route 4 near Bnei Brak after protesters blocked traffic, clashed with officers, and hurled insults at police, including calling them “Nazis.”

תיעוד: שוטר חונק מפגין במחאת החרדים בכביש 4; המשטרה: המפגין נעצר אחרי שתקף את מפקד התחנה@AnnaPines_ (צילום: יאיר פולדש, הארץ) pic.twitter.com/1McGtwr3Hn

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) January 20, 2026

According to police, protesters sat on the road, threw stones, and blocked vehicles with their bodies, endangering both themselves and others on the road. Police said they were forced to use crowd-control measures and extract vehicles trapped in the demonstration, after they had declared the protest unlawful and issued warnings ignored by participants.

One protester was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer, police said.

All lanes of Route 4 were eventually reopened to traffic.

Court extends remand for suspects

Amid the riots, two caregivers who worked at the unlicensed daycare appeared in court Tuesday, with a judge ordering them held in custody until Thursday.

The two were detained, along with a third suspect, after the bodies of the two babies and dozens more injured were found by authorities Monday morning. According to police, only two were set to appear in court, suggesting that the third suspect was released.

In the detention hearing in court, a police representative said he was shocked by what he saw in the apartment that served as a daycare. He said the daycare had been operated for years and that the premises suffered from “clear neglect.”

Evidence has also emerged that the caregivers put some of the infants under their care to sleep in the bathroom, right next to a toilet.

According to reports in Hebrew media, the two are facing possible charges of reckless homicide and negligence in connection with the incident.

Additionally, the Kan broadcaster reported that police arrested the owner of the daycare on Tuesday, who revealed under questioning that she has run the facility for some 30 years. It was unclear if she would face the same charges as the other two suspects.

According to Shaare Zedek Medical Center, 27 of the hospitalized children were released home after spending a night in medical care. The hospital said all of those released were in good condition.