Police arrested 15 demonstrators and detained 20 others for questioning late Thursday night as hareidi religious Jews returned to the streets near the Beit Yisrael section of Jerusalem to protest the arrest of a woman from the Toldot Aharon community earlier in the week on charges of starving her three-year-old son. At least ten police officers and six demonstrators suffered light injuries in the demonstrations.
An estimated 1,500 demonstrators gathered at Sabbath Square (Kikar Shabat) in the Mea She'arim neighborhood to pray in reaction to the arrest of the woman. From there, they proceeded to block Highway One until police turned water cannons on them. Later, the hareidim threw things at police in various neighborhoods. A parallel disturbance took place in Beit Shemesh.
Moshe Friedman of the woman's family had called for calm, saying the violence only hurts the case of the family. Rabbi Natan Tzvi Finkel, the head of the Mir Yeshiva, had also told his students to stay away from the demonstrations.