Extremist settler activist put into administrative detention

Prominent settlement activist Ariel Danino is put into administrative detention for four months after Defense Minister Yoav Gallant approved the order.

The administrative detention order, reportedly approved by the Shin Bet, cites “a reasonable foundation to assume that state security/public security requires” he be detained.

The administrative detention order is dated October 29 to February 28.

Danino was arrested Saturday night in the illegal West Bank outpost of Kumi Ori close to the Yitzhar settlement in the northern West Bank by Border Police forces and Shin Bet agents, some of whom were masked, who blocked off roads in the outpost while the arrest operation was underway, according to the far-right Kol Hayehudi online news site.

Administrative detention is primarily used for Palestinian terror suspects — about 1,000 of whom are currently held in custody under the practice. The orders have also been used with a handful of Jewish Israeli terror suspects in recent years.

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 in a court of law. Its use against settler extremists has become more common as of late, as many of them maintain their right to silence and refuse to cooperate with an investigation. Moreover, police are slower to arrive to the scene of crimes against Palestinians in the West Bank and often fail to collect evidence in time, if at all.

Videos uploaded to social media showed Danino flashing the V sign while sitting in the back of a security services vehicle after he was arrested.

According to the anti-settlements group Peace Now, extremist settlers from Yitzhar and surrounding settlements and outposts have been involved in dozens of attacks against Palestinians in the last decade.

On Saturday, a Palestinian man harvesting olives was reportedly shot dead by a settler outside the village of As-Sawiya some 15 kilometers (9 miles) south of Yitzhar, the latest in a long series of incidents of settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank since the October 7 massacres by Hamas in southern Israel.