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 are 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........

© The Times of Israel