Defense minister declares end to administrative detention against West Bank settlers
7 Jews, thousands of Palestinians currently detained under tool to hold terror suspects without trial; move hailed by far-right leaders, decried by opposition, rights groups, PA
New Defense Minister Israel Katz announced an end to administrative detention orders for West Bank settlers on Friday, meaning Israel will now be using the controversial policy of holding suspects without charge only against Palestinian terror suspects.
While the practice is primarily deployed against Palestinians, it is also used against some extremist Jewish Israelis, which has drawn increasing criticism of the ruling Likud party by far-right coalition members. The measure sees individuals held without charge for up to six months at a time. The detentions can be renewed indefinitely while allowing military prosecutors to keep suspects from being able to see the evidence against them.
“In a reality where the Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria is subject to serious Palestinian terror threats and unjustified international sanctions are taken against the settlers, it is not appropriate for the State of Israel to take such a severe measure against the people of the settlements,” Katz said in a statement, referring to the West Bank by its biblical name.
Katz met with Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar this week and told him that he had decided “to stop the use of administrative detention orders against Jewish settlers in Judea and Samaria, and asked him to put alternative tools in place,” Katz’s office said.
The Shin Bet has reportedly warned against the move, with Bar saying in June that banning the measure against Israelis “will result in an immediate, severe and serious harm to the security of the state” in cases where there is clear information that a suspect may carry out a terror attack.
The Palestinian Authority swiftly hit out at the decision saying that it “encourages extremist settlers to commit terrorism against Palestinians, their land and their properties, while giving them an additional sense of impunity and protection.”
Administrative detention policies allow the Defense Ministry to hold suspects without charge, while administrative restraining orders bar them from visiting certain areas or communicating with certain people. The tool is typically used when authorities have intelligence tying a suspect to a crime but do not have enough evidence for charges to stand up in a court of law.
Currently, more than 3,400 people, the vast majority of them Palestinians, are being held in administrative detention, according to figures from the Israel Prison Service.
A total of 16 administrative detention orders were issued for Jewish Israelis under former defense minister Yoav Gallant, and seven of them are still being held.
Katz said that “if there is suspicion of criminal acts, the perpetrators can be prosecuted, and if not, there are other preventive measures that can be taken other than administrative detention orders.”
“I condemn any phenomenon of violence against Palestinians and taking the law into one’s own hands, and I also appeal to the settlement leadership to take a similar public position and express an unequivocal position on the issue,” the minister added.
Settler violence spiked after the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught in the south. Israeli authorities rarely arrest Jewish perpetrators in such attacks. Some rights groups lament that convictions are even more unusual and that the vast majority of charges in these types of attacks are dropped.
As recently as this past weekend, dozens of masked settlers set fire to several buildings and a car in the West Bank village of Beit Furik near Nablus, according to the IDF. There has been no news of arrests.
The defense minister’s decision was welcomed by right-wing politicians, with far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a former settler activist who was previously convicted of terror-related offenses, calling the move “important and huge news… This is a correction of many years of mistreatment, and justice for those who love the land.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settlement advocate, said Katz “eliminated long-standing discrimination against settlers in Judea and Samaria and put an end to the injustice in which the settlers were second-class citizens and draconian and undemocratic measures were applied against them that trampled on their rights, measures that are not applied against any other population in the State of Israel except terrorists and dangerous enemies.”
Smotrich clarified that if the “unacceptable phenomenon” of settler violence occurs, it “should be handled by the police and the legal system in accordance with the procedures and rules of evidence of criminal law, just as they would be with any other citizen or population.”
Justice Minister Yariv Levin congratulated Katz on his decision, calling the move an “end to discrimination.”
Levin added that the “pioneer settlers in Judea and Samaria are overwhelmingly law-abiding. Cases of illegal violence should be handled as is customary with respect to any Israeli citizen and in accordance with the law, as is customary everywhere in the country.”
MK Simcha Rothman, the chairman of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, welcomed the announcement as a “moral, just and correct decision.”
A bill sponsored by Rothman — which would forbid the use of administrative detention or administrative restraining orders against Israeli citizens, unless they are members of a certain list of terror groups — is currently making its way through the Knesset.
Not all Israeli politicians supported the move, with MK Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff and current centrist opposition lawmaker, calling it “a grave and dangerous mistake.”
“This is another step toward a severe escalation in Judea and Samaria, for which we will all pay the price,” Eisenkot warned.
“The goal of such orders is not law-abiding Jewish citizens but extremist terror elements who tarnish and endanger us as a society,” he said. “This step joins other deliberate measures that harm the IDF’s ability to fulfill its role as the sovereign authority responsible for the safety and security of residents.”
Hadash-Ta’al MK Ahmad Tibi lambasted the move, saying that “this is effectively the defense minister’s certification of approval for Jewish terror — a government of terror supporters. Administrative detention applies only to Palestinians. This is yet more proof of the regime of Jewish supremacy. Later, they’ll cry about ‘antisemitism’ in The Hague. In short, administrative detention does not apply to those whose veins flow with blue-and-white blood, members of the ‘supreme Jewish race.'”
The left-wing Yesh Din human rights nonprofit said that “administrative detention is a draconian and anti-democratic measure that should be stopped against Palestinians and Israelis alike.”
“Instead, law enforcement agencies should conduct effective investigations and bring to justice when there is sufficient evidence to do so. Let us recall that thousands of Palestinians are being held in administrative detention under administrative detention orders that Minister Katz has not revoked,” the group added.
Peace Now director Yonatan Mizrahi told AFP that although administrative detention was mostly used to detain Palestinians, it was one of the few effective tools for temporarily removing the threat of settler violence in the West Bank.
“The cancellation of administrative detention orders for settlers alone is a cynical… move that whitewashes and normalizes escalating Jewish terrorism under the cover of war,” the group said in a statement.
Agencies contributed to this report.
