Ultra-Orthodox protesters demonstrated for hours from late Monday into early Tuesday across several locations in central Israel, opposing a court decision to authorize autopsies for two infants who died in a daycare disaster in Jerusalem’s Romema neighborhood.
Officers declared the protests unlawful, dispersed crowds that blocked roads, and reported stones thrown and trash bins set alight. The families of the victims were granted the right to appeal the autopsy ruling on Tuesday.
The Israel Police said demonstrators burned garbage containers, blocked traffic, and in some instances attacked motorists, prompting crowd dispersal operations, including the use of a water cannon.
A Jerusalem court approved autopsies for the two infants as requested by the Attorney-General’s Office and police. The families oppose the procedure and were permitted to appeal on Tuesday. The ruling followed external examinations that did not conclusively determine the cause of death.
Police arrested the daycare owner and the caregiver in charge following initial questioning, and both will be brought before a judge on Tuesday as the investigation continues.
Health officials said tests showed no evidence of carbon monoxide poisoning, with assessments shifting toward respiratory distress linked to an environmental hazard at the site.
Two children dead, over 50 injured in Jerusalem daycare disaster
The director of Hadassah-University Medical Center, Professor Yaniv Sherer, where many of the injured children were taken to for treatment and observation, told Maariv that the injuries and deaths probably resulted from "some kind of poisoning, with or without a combination of crowding, fever, or dehydration."
According to Sherer, blood tests from the children confirmed that carbon monoxide was not the cause of the incident.
“There was no gas leak,” an inspector from the Environmental Protection Ministry confirmed at the scene following suspicions of a leak being the cause of the incident.
Goldie Katz and James Genn contributed to this report.