As 51 Chareidim remain in custody a week after the protest outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Noam Solhberg in Alon Shvut, Attorney Natan Rosenblatt accused law enforcement authorities of carrying out an unprecedented wave of arrests despite the lack of evidence against the majority of the detainees.

Speaking on Kol Chai, Rosenblatt said that 65 protesters were initially arrested and appeared before multiple judges who reached completely different conclusions regarding their cases.

“Some judges ordered immediate release, while others extended the detentions by four, five, and even six days,” he said.

According to Rosenblatt, out of the 65 detainees, there is no evidence that 64 of them committed any offense. He emphasized that even if acts of vandalism occurred during the protest, that does not justify the mass arrest of all participants. “Never in the history of the State of Israel has an entire group of protesters been arrested because of the actions of one individual,” he said.

He revealed that during the hearings in the Magistrate’s Court, the police struggled to present any evidentiary basis justifying continued detention.

“The judge asked on what basis these people were being held, and the police had no answer,” he said.

He added that the lower court initially ordered the detainees released, but that decision was later delayed following an appeal to the district court.

Rosenblat explained that after appeals were filed by both the police and the detainees’ attorneys, it was decided that most of the detainees would remain in custody until Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. Meanwhile, all minors were released, as well as several additional detainees, due to medical grounds. However, new suspects were arrested in other cases connected to the protests, including the brutal arrest of a Chareidi photographer.

“There is no real reason for these arrests other than an attempt to silence the Chareidi public,” he said.

Concluding the interview, Rosenblatt warned of the broader implications for the entire Chareidi sector, saying that the mass arrests are actually increasing solidarity with the protesters rather than weakening it.

“You’re turning everyone into Peleg Yerushalmi,” he said, referring to the police’s conduct.

In a separate report, Kol Chai correspondent Nati Kalish addressed the legal developments regarding the protesters, saying: “This is complete absurdity. Buses of protesters arrived to legally demonstrate, and among them were only a handful—maybe three to five people—who acted violently, broke a window, and damaged plants in the yard. The police are now holding 51 people in custody without any individual evidence, purely as political revenge. The judges handling these detention extensions are in a clear conflict of interest. Where was this collective punishment when it came to the Kaplan activists?”

Kalish described what happened on Sunday, when police brutally arrested a Chareidi man who had filmed the incident: “The police are trying to use his footage to fish for suspects because they have no other investigative material. Why wasn’t the Channel 13 cameraman, who had the exact same footage, arrested with the same brutality? The cameraman came to do his job, and I hope he stays strong. If he’s not obligated to hand over the material, he shouldn’t do so.”

(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)