Right-wing activist charged with threatening Shin Bet agents

A right-wing activist was charged Sunday with threatening two Shin Bet agents and a deputy state prosecutor in court.

Ephraim Khantsis, a 27-year-old immigrant from the United States and resident of the West Bank settlement of Tapuah, was arrested last week after appearing outside the hearing of two extreme right-wing activists who were imprisoned without trial. He allegedly gesticulated at the prosecutor and officers with a slicing motion across his throat and told the three, “I will deal with you.”

Khantsis came to the Lod District Court where the judge approved the administrative detention of Meir Ettinger and Eviatar Slonim for six months.

“He didn’t hesitate to threaten the legal counsel of the Shin Bet, even after he was detained and surrounded by guards,” the charge sheet filed in the Rishon Lezion District Court on Sunday read, according to a Channel 10 report. “His behavior points to a lack of fear and limits.”

The prosecution sought an extension of the man’s detention until the end of the trial, Israel Radio reported.

Khantzis was previously ordered to be placed under administrative detention — the Israeli legal term for incarceration without trial for suspected involvement in terrorism — in 2010. The Shin Bet issued an order for his detention at the time for suspected “harm to the security of the state” and had concrete intelligence he planned to carry out a violent attack. According to Haaretz, however, Khantsis left Israel without being detained after his lawyer struck a deal with the Shin Bet.

Previously, he was banned from entering the West Bank by the head of the IDF’s Central Command for a half year after voicing support for Jack Teitel, a Jewish terrorist who was sentenced to two life sentences in 2013 for two murders and a laundry list of other offenses.