The Justice Ministry’s Department of Internal Police Investigations (DIPI) announced Saturday that it had launched a probe into an incident in which three women were arrested for placing leaflets on seats at MK Yuli Edelstein’s synagogue calling for the release of hostages held in Gaza.

The women were questioned on suspicions including breaking and entering, but security footage showed that the synagogue was open when they entered to place the leaflets on congregants’ seats. One of the three said she was arrested and handcuffed at home in front of her young children.

Police said earlier Saturday that “in light of the allegations” about the case’s handling, new police chief Daniel Levy had ordered a probe into the arresting officers’ conduct.

But Kan news said that probe would be halted now that DIPI had announced its own investigation.

A spokesperson for the State Prosecutor’s Office told The Times of Israel that multiple probes into the same incident “usually” don’t continue in parallel, appearing to indicate the police probe is likely to close.

Amid growing public anger over the arrests, a column of protesters trailed Edelstein — a lawmaker from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party — as he walked to synagogue on Saturday morning.

The demonstrators waved Israeli flags and shouted “shame” and “forsaker of Zion.” The chant was a reference to the fact that the Likud lawmaker was a Prisoner of Zion — a Jewish refusenik jailed in the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

The Detainee Support Organization, which represents arrested anti-government activists, released a video of protesters shouting “abandoner” and “shame” as Edelstein, who chairs the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, exited the synagogue.

Edelstein, who is religiously observant, did not address the protesters outside the synagogue.

Nor has he commented on the arrests, which were made several hours before the Sabbath started at sundown.

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