Director general of Ben Gvir’s party questioned over settler attack on police officers

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party said Sunday that its director general, Itiel Neiman, had been summoned for interrogation after police earlier said they were questioning a suspect in an October 1 attack on police officers in the central West Bank’s Mitzpe Jericho settlement.

Police said the person questioned by police’s Lahav 433 major crimes unit was suspected of extortion, assaulting and harassing an officer and obstructing an investigation, though they did not name Neiman.

Ben Gvir’s party accused Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara of “political persecution” in Neiman’s interrogation, which it said followed an “attempt to intimidate MK Yitzhak Kroizer,” a former Otzma Yehudit Knesset member who is a suspect in the Mitzpe Jericho assault. Neiman was also a candidate on the party’s electoral slate, but didn’t make it into the Knesset following the October 27 vote.

According to Haaretz, which first reported the suspicions against Kroizer and Neiman last month, the two Otzma Yehudit members attacked officers during a riot that gave cover for the escape of a suspect in violence against Palestinians.

The riot reportedly erupted after police chased the suspect and others to a location near a Mitzpe Jericho synagogue that was hosting a memorial for four fallen soldiers, including Neiman’s brother Aviad, who was killed fighting in Lebanon in 2024.

Evidence and testimony from the clash indicate that Kroizer hit an officer and Neiman grabbed an officer by the shirt and pulled him to the ground, according to police sources cited by Haaretz.

Multiple officers were injured as a result of the riot, and Ben Gvir himself later arrived at the scene and reportedly accused officers of using excessive force.

Haaretz reported last month that senior police officers fear the case will be mishandled because of the pair’s ties to Ben Gvir, who, as national security minister, oversees the police.

Ben Gvir has long faced accusations of over-interference in police work, including from Baharav-Miara, who earlier this year told the High Court of Justice that legal efforts to prevent the minister from undermining police independence had failed.

Settler violence in the West Bank has risen sharply since the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, that sparked the war in Gaza. Violence has surged further in recent months, with daily attacks and harassment, and few perpetrators charged or convicted. The attacks, some of which have targeted diplomats or the press, have sparked widespread international condemnations and even sanctions against Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other ministers have regularly downplayed settler violence as a marginal concern, claiming that nearly all incidents are the work of a few hundred wayward youths, despite attacks taking place on a near-daily basis and occurring in hundreds of villages and towns across the West Bank.

Critics accuse the government of condoning and even encouraging the violence, which has led to the displacement of dozens of Palestinian families.

In the latest incident, Palestinian Authority news agency WAFA reported Sunday that a Palestinian man had been injured in a West Bank attack and taken to a hospital for treatment.

صورة | مستوطنون يعتدون على المواطن عبد الله صبري أبو كامش في منطقة الواد بقرية جمالا غرب رام الله pic.twitter.com/SkbTPCfN8s

— شبكة فلسطين للحوار (@paldf) November 15, 2026

According to reports, Abdullah Abu Qamash was injured in an attack by settlers. No further details about the incident were immediately available.

Other incidents of settler violence occurred earlier on Sunday and in previous days.

Nurit Yohanan and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.