Katz declines to call settler rampage through Palestinian village ‘terrorism’
Defense minister says perpetrators broke the law and must be dealt with, but rejects need for ‘draconian’ measure of administrative detention, which he ended for Jewish Israelis
Defense Minister Israel Katz on Thursday declined to characterize this week’s latest settler rampage in a Palestinian village as terrorism.
“I don’t define this as ‘terror,'” Katz told Army Radio when asked about the Tuesday incident in the West Bank’s Duma, where some 50 Israelis attacked homes, adding: “This is my perspective.”
Three Palestinians were reportedly injured amid the attack, as settlers torched property and assaulted residents, days after a group of settlers also raided the southern West Bank village of Jinba, where several residents were reported wounded.
“There was lawbreaking here, and we must deal with it. We must enforce [the law] against whoever did this,” Katz said of the rampage in Duma. He added, “I am against violence, I support enforcing the law,” and said such acts should not be allowed.
However, Katz defended his decision to end the policy of administrative detentions against extremist settlers while leaving them in place for Palestinians.
He said there was “no connection” between that issue and the events in Duma, saying those who violated the law should be prosecuted, but not through the use of “draconian” administrative detentions.
Administrative detention policies allow the Defense Ministry to hold suspects 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.
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.
While the practice is primarily deployed against Palestinians, it has also been used in rare cases against some extremist Jewish Israelis in cases where there was clear information that a suspect may carry out a terror attack against Palestinians.
In November, however, Katz banned the administrative detention of settlers, and in January, he freed seven settlers who were still being held.
The defense minister’s comments on Thursday stood in contrast to those of Democrats party chair Yair Golan, who on Tuesday tweeted that the rampage was a “pogrom” and accused the government of “unleashing violence in the West Bank.”
???? BREAKING: Dozens of Israeli settlers carried out a pogrom in the village of Duma, near Nablus in the West Bank, setting Palestinian homes and vehicles on fire. Two people were reported injured after their house was set ablaze. pic.twitter.com/ZqOqRjstQE
— Ihab Hassan (@IhabHassane) April 1, 2025
The West Bank has seen a spike in violence since October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill some 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
In the West Bank, the military has undertaken large-scale counterterrorism operations that have killed hundreds of people — the vast majority of them combatants, according to the IDF — and displaced tens of thousands.
Arrests of Israelis in incidents of settler violence are extremely rare. The head of the police’s West Bank division is currently under investigation for allegedly refusing to crack down on the phenomenon to curry favor in the eyes of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
Israel’s failure to prosecute near-daily incidents of settler violence led the previous White House and multiple European governments to begin sanctioning violent settlers last year. US President Donald Trump scrapped his predecessor’s sanctions shortly after taking office in January.
Emanuel Fabian, Jeremy Sharon and agencies contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.