RAMALLAH, Palestine

Palestine on Friday condemned Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz’s decision to suspend administrative detention orders against illegal Israeli settlers, fearing it will embolden “supremacists” to commit more crimes against Palestinians.

Earlier Friday, the Israeli Defense Ministry announced Katz’s decision to suspend administrative detention orders against illegal Israeli settlers accused of attacking Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

In a statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said Katz’s decision would “encourage supremacist settlers to commit acts of terrorism against Palestinians and their property, intensify crimes against them and further encourage their impunity.”

The statement noted that only a few illegal Israeli settlers were detained as “symbolic arrests” as part of the revolving door policy.

The ministry called for “effective international action to control settler militias, end their impunity” and protect Palestinians from Israeli occupation violations.

Peace Now, which monitors and opposes Israeli settlement activities in the occupied territories, said in a statement that “rescinding settler-only administrative detention orders is a cynical and reckless move that whitewashes and normalizes the rise of Jewish terrorism under the guise of war. .”

Administrative detention, which is based on undisclosed evidence, has been used primarily against Palestinians, with 3,443 currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian prisoner affairs groups.

There are no official Israeli figures on illegal settlers subject to administrative detention, but estimates indicate that only a few have been detained under this law.

According to Peace Now, there are more than 720,000 illegal settlers in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Tension has risen in the West Bank over Israel’s brutal war in the Gaza Strip, which killed more than 44,000 people, mostly women and children, in a Hamas attack last year.

Nearly 795 Palestinians have been killed and more than 6,400 others injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied territory, according to the Ministry of Health.

In July, the International Court of Justice issued a landmark advisory opinion that declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land “illegal” and called for the evacuation of all existing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

*Written by Ahmed Asmar

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