Police raided the closed community in Yavne'el on Wednesday and detained for questioning several people linked to it, including community members accused of arranging secret weddings, matchmaking boys, and conducting the ceremonies illegally, as well as several boys suspected of marrying in recent months. The operation followed a covert investigation that had been running for months and exposed the method used to carry out the marriages.
According to investigators, the ceremonies are held in the morning with only a small number of attendees, without sharing the location, and with phones and cameras barred to prevent documentation. After the religious ceremony, there is usually another event for the wider public disguised as an engagement party, to which relatives of the bride and groom are invited. Police say the setup makes enforcement difficult because the weddings leave few visible signs, often without a ketubah or invitation, and families can claim it is only an engagement celebration.
As part of the probe, police gathered hospital data from northern Israel and found more than 20 cases in the past three years in which girls from the community gave birth while civil records still listed them as single. Data prepared at the request of Knesset Committee on the Status of Women chair MK Merav Cohen and revealed by ynet showed a sharp rise in very young brides who later delivered children at ages 16 or 17. At Poriya Hospital in Tiberias, 10 Yavne'el minors gave birth in 2025, eight in 2024, two in 2023, five in 2022, and one in 2021; since 2000, 40 Yavne'el girls have delivered there, 15 of them age 16, suggesting marriage at 15. Separate figures from Laniado Hospital in Netanya showed two Yavne'el girls gave birth in 2026, three in 2025 and 2024, and two in 2023.
Hospitals do not report such cases to police because of privacy rules, but they do report to welfare authorities. Cohen said, “צריך להגיד שאפו למשטרה, שעשתה צעד ראשון חשוב בדרך למיגור התופעה. זו הוכחה מובהקת כשיש רצון - אפשר. אני לא ארפה מהמאבק הציבורי שלי בנושא עד שהגל הזה יהפוך לצונאמי שישטוף את החרפה הזו מהציבוריות הישראלית.” Knesset research data showed 321 reports of underage marriages without permits in Israel between 2023 and 2025, mostly in Arab communities and very strict Haredi communities, but only a few indictments were filed. Yavne'el’s local council said the publicity unfairly stigmatized whole communities and said it would cooperate with authorities to uphold the law and public order.
