In a dramatic Supreme Court ruling, President Yitzhak Amit and Justices Yael Willner and Ruth Ronen ordered that two orphaned sisters be removed from the custody of their maternal aunt and her partner — where they had lived since the October 7 massacre — and placed in the care of their paternal aunt.
The decision overturns a lower court ruling that had allowed the sisters to remain with their mother's family.
The sisters' lives were upended when their parents were murdered in the October 7 attack. Since then, they had been living with their maternal aunt. However, their father's sister and her partner petitioned to raise the girls themselves.
In December, a family court ruled in favor of the paternal relatives. But the mother’s family appealed and, in February, the district court reversed the decision, despite professional assessments recommending the girls be raised by the paternal aunt.
That ruling read the maternal relatives were "worthy and suitable," and that “if not for the ‘competition’ with the father's family, no one would have considered removing the girls from their care.”
The father’s family appealed to the Supreme Court. They argued the district court erred in overruling expert opinions that concluded the girls' best interests would be served by living with their father's sister. This view was supported by the court-appointed guardians ad litem as well as the state.
The mother's family argued there was no reason to overturn the district court ruling, insisting the girls should remain with them.
Willner, who authored the main opinion, ruled to accept the appeal and return the girls to the paternal family. She stressed there was no justification to dismiss the findings of expert evaluations submitted to the family court, which concluded the father's family was better positioned to help the girls cope with the long-term challenges ahead.
Get the Ynetnews app on your smartphone: Google Play: https://bit.ly/4eJ37pE | Apple App Store: https://bit.ly/3ZL7iNv
Willner criticized the district court for how it approached the matter. “Unlike cases involving removal of a child from biological parents, here it’s not enough to determine that the maternal family is ‘good enough’; the question is what’s best for the girls,” she wrote.
She also noted that welfare officials, the court guardians and the attorney representing the attorney general all supported placing the girls with the father's family, reinforcing the expert recommendation.
The justices unanimously ruled to overturn the district court’s decision. The girls will now be placed in the care of their paternal aunt and her partner.