The Tel Aviv District Court imposed sweeping restrictions on Yossi Mosli on Thursday, placing him under house arrest and barring him from using messaging applications in the first reported use of a controversial organized-crime law against a Jewish crime organization.
The order allows police to restrict Mosli’s movements and communications without charging him with a crime, based partly on confidential intelligence that has not been disclosed to him or the public.
Police identify Mosli as one of the leaders of the Mosli crime organization and said the measure was necessary amid what they described as a violent, month-long conflict with the Jarushi crime organization.
Police have linked the conflict to a series of attacks on Japanika restaurants, including grenade attacks. Mosli was arrested in July as part of the investigation and released several days later. He has not been charged in connection with those attacks.
Mosli to remain under house arrest
Under Thursday’s order, Mosli will remain at his father’s home in Tel Aviv’s Kfar Shalem neighborhood until noon on Sunday. He must then travel directly to his home in Savyon, where he will remain under full house arrest until September 19.
For 60 days beginning Thursday, Mosli will also be barred from leaving Israel, using internet-based messaging applications, and contacting dozens of people named in a confidential police list. He must report to a police station when required and may not enter Tel Aviv, Herzliya, Ramat Gan, Umm el-Fahm, Jaljulia, Ramle, or Lod.
He will be permitted to speak to his father once a day in an ordinary telephone call, rather than through WhatsApp, using a number given to police in advance.
Police presented the decision as granting their application and said it formed part of their broader effort against organized crime.
“This is another step in the fight against crime organizations that undermine citizens’ sense of security,” police said. “We will continue to use all the means at our disposal to reduce criminal activity and damage the criminal infrastructure of crime organizations wherever it operates.”
The central dispute during Thursday’s hearing was where Mosli would spend his house arrest.
Mosli’s attorneys, Doron Noy and Shahar Hetzroni, sought permission for him to remain at his father’s home, saying his father was in severe nursing condition and that Mosli was his principal caregiver.
Police strongly opposed the request, arguing that the Kfar Shalem address was closely connected to the criminal activity they attribute to the organization.
“If the respondent remains in this house, there is no purpose to the order,” Rafael Amon, head of the assessment department at the Tel Aviv District Central Unit, told the court.
Amon said police viewed Mosli as posing a danger to others if he remained there. He added that the house itself had previously been targeted in an attack in which an uninvolved passerby was wounded by a fragmentation grenade.
The claims were presented by police and were not established as findings in the court’s short public decision.
Police also admitted that they had made a mistake by allowing Mosli to return to the same address after he was released under restrictions on July 19.
“After his release, there were many additional incidents, and the danger only increased,” Amon said.
The state’s attorney told the court that police had hoped Mosli’s arrest and questioning would be sufficient to reduce the danger, but said that had not happened.
Mosli rejected the police’s position, telling the court that he had lived with his father for the past four years.
The parties ultimately accepted the court’s proposal that Mosli move to his property in Savyon while the remaining restrictions stay in place.
Police also said they would not oppose individual requests for Mosli to visit his attorneys’ office, provided he gave 24 hours’ notice and traveled directly there and back. They said they would consider a detailed request submitted in advance for him to attend Rosh Hashanah prayers.
Order issued under Protection of the Public from Crime Organizations Law
The order was issued under the Protection of the Public from Crime Organizations Law, enacted as a two-year temporary measure in December 2024.
The law created an exceptional route for restricting people whom police say operate within crime organizations when intelligence indicates a serious danger to human life, but the authorities cannot address it through an ordinary criminal case.
It allows courts to consider confidential intelligence and other material that would not necessarily be admissible at trial. The person facing the restrictions may receive only a summary of evidence that police argue must remain secret.
Mosli’s attorneys said the procedure allowed police to impose severe restrictions after failing to gather enough evidence for an indictment.
“This is a terrible law that permits conditions to be imposed on a person’s liberty without evidence,” they said following the ruling. “Laws of this kind perpetuate police failure to obtain evidence and solve crimes.”
The tool has been used before, primarily against members of Arab crime organizations. Figures presented to the Knesset’s National Security Committee in April showed that courts had approved 16 of 22 applications filed by prosecutors.
However, N12 and crime-news outlet Posta reported that the application against Mosli was the first filed under the law against a Jewish crime organization.
The order is preventive and does not amount to a criminal conviction or establish Mosli’s responsibility for any of the incidents cited by police.