Report: Shin Bet warns bill barring use of administrative orders against Israelis will harm ability to prevent terror

The Shin Bet security service has expressed alarm over a bill advanced by Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman that would mostly forbid administrative detention orders from being used against Israeli citizens, saying it would cause “serious harm” to their ability to thwart terror attacks perpetrated by both Jewish and Arab citizens, the Walla news site reported.

The bill, set to be discussed tomorrow by ministers, forbids the use of administrative detention or administrative restraining orders to prevent terror attacks by Israeli citizens unless they are members of a certain restricted list of terror groups to be approved by the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, which Rothman chairs.

According to Walla, Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar’s office sent a letter to a number of government officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s military secretaries, stating the prohibition of such measures “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 Defense Ministry’s controversial policy of administrative detention, involving holding suspects without charge, is largely deployed against Palestinians, but also used against extremist Jewish Israelis.

It can also deploy administrative restraining orders to bar people from certain areas or communicating with certain people.

Israel says administrative detention is a tool that helps keep dangerous terrorists off the streets and allows the government to hold suspects without divulging sensitive intelligence. Critics say the policy denies prisoners due process.

The detentions must be renewed by a military court every six months, and Palestinian prisoners can remain in jail for years under the mechanism. Some resort to life-threatening hunger strikes to draw attention to their detentions.

Far-right members of the government such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir have called on Gallant to cease use of the tool against Jewish Israelis while backing its continued use against Palestinians and its expansion against Arab Israelis.

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