Police strip-searched three female protesters after their arrest Thursday night at a Tel Aviv demonstration demanding a Gaza hostage deal, according to a Friday report.
The women were arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct, Haaretz said, a charge that doesn’t typically lead to strip-searches, even though police have the authority to conduct them.
The women were arrested with two other men who were not strip-searched, the paper said.
Two of the protesters said that they were required to pull down their pants and lift their shirts.
Efrat Safran, one of the detainees, told Haaretz they were warned that “’If you resist, we’ll use reasonable force.’ We were left with no choice but to comply.”
Safran added that this was her fourth protest-related arrest, but she had never previously been asked to undress. Another detainee said the officer justified the search as necessary to ensure she was not a danger to herself or others.
According to the report, police said the search was a lawful and routine procedure, applied to all detainees, to prevent detainees from having objects that could harm them or others in the holding cell.
Mounted police face off with Anti-government, pro-hostage deal protesters on the Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv, August 9, 2025. (Yael Gadot/Pro-Democracy Protest Movement)
The protesters’ lawyer argued that since the detainees were suspected only of public order offenses, which do not legally justify a strip search, the procedure was an unnecessary violation of their rights.
Eighteen complaints have been filed against police in the past month over partial strip searches of protesters.
Last week, Channel 12 reported that three women were strip-searched after being detained for blocking a road during an anti-government protest in Tel Aviv.
Another man who was arrested for the same reason was asked only to lift his shirt but was not strip-searched, the network said, noting that officers are entitled to perform strip searches only where they have a reasonable suspicion that justifies it.
Police told the network that “the search was done in accordance with the authority granted to officers.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
