Live Update 
From the Liveblog of
Friday, March 1, 2024
From the Liveblog of
Friday, March 1, 2024
Ben Gvir: Shin Bet head ordered release of administrative detainees as Ramadan ‘gesture’
File - National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir (left) at a conference in Jerusalem, on February 21, 2023, and Ronen Bar (right), head of the Shin Bet security agency speaks at a conference at the Reichman University in Herzliya, September 11, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel; Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir rails at the release of Palestinian administrative detainees, claiming they were not in fact freed due to overcrowding.
“[They were released] because of the direct order of the Shin Bet head as a ‘gesture’ ahead of Ramadan,” the far-right politician says in a statement, without offering any evidence for his charge against Ronen Bar.
Ben Gvir says the Israel Prisons Service, which is under his authority, “has no judgement on the matter.”
He also fumes at Bar because the release took place on the same day two Israelis were killed in a terror shooting in the West Bank, and a day after the extension of a settler activist’s administrative detention.
