Katz said to meet suspect detained over brutal settler attack on West Bank village

Defense Minister Israel Katz met Friday for around an hour with a suspected violent settler who has been on a hunger strike in his jail cell since his detention, Hebrew media reported.

Tal Yinon Dardik is suspected of a brutal attack in Khirbet Humsa, a Palestinian village in the West Bank, where he, along with other extremist settlers, allegedly stripped a Palestinian victim, zip-tied his genitals, and paraded him around the village in March.

Dardik denies taking part in the incident. After refusing to be placed under administrative house arrest, he was placed in a detention cell, where he has been fasting for 20 days in protest, the Ynet news site reported.

During the meeting, Katz offered to place him under house arrest at a friend’s home, but Dardik refused, associates of his family told the Channel 12 news site.

Dardik, who lives on a farming outpost in Area B in the West Bank, which is under Palestinian civil control, has reportedly insisted on remaining there.

Sources close to Katz told Hebrew media outlets that he visited the suspect to ensure his life was not at risk. It is highly unusual for a defense minister to meet with someone suspected of a nationalistic crime.

In a statement cited by Channel 12, Dardik’s family insisted that the suspect has “no connection” to the violent incident, that he is “completely innocent, and is engaged in settling the land and raising sheep.”

The arrest has generated protests among West Bank settlers, including far-right Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech, who have urged Katz and IDF Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth to release Dardik.

According to police, the attackers entered Khirbet Humsa before dawn on March 13, restrained the residents, and beat them violently.

One of those attacked, 29-year-old Qusai Abu al-Kebash, told The New York Times that assailants stripped him, zip-tied his genitals, and paraded him around the village.

Police said in a March statement that rioters also damaged and stole villagers’ property, including a large number of sheep. Several residents sustained injuries, including four who required medical treatment.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserted in December 2025 that violent settlers numbered just some 70 youths who, he said, were not even from the West Bank. Earlier this month, he revised that figure upward to 150 “juvenile delinquents” who, he said, were “brought into the West Bank.”

However, activists on the ground have said those behind the attacks are Israelis who have established illegal outposts throughout the West Bank in record numbers over the past three years. Netanyahu’s government has provided significant funding and protection to these wildcat communities, which critics say are being used as a tool to dispossess Palestinians of their lands.

Israel has come under fire for rarely carrying out arrests in instances of settler violence, with indictments and convictions even more infrequent.

Shin Bet figures from earlier this year found that three times more Palestinians were victims of terror attacks in the West Bank than Jews.

The IDF recorded 867 incidents of nationalistic crime and settler violence in 2025. The total for 2024 was 682 incidents.