The Israeli government is making a gesture towards settlers and particularly those who commit criminal acts: they no longer risk administrative detention, this regime of incarceration without trial which generally applies to Palestinians, but which Israel sometimes resorted to for its own citizens.
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Several thousand Palestinians are currently in administrative detention in Israelimprisoned without trial for renewable periods. This prison regime could until now also apply to Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank who have committed violence against Palestinian civilians.
This will no longer be the case. The Israeli Minister of DefenseIsrael Katz, announced Friday, November 22 that administrative detention, equivalent to almost unlimited police custody, would no longer be applicable to Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
While ” Jewish colonies [en Cisjordanie] are subject to serious Palestinian terrorist threats […] and that unjustified international sanctions are taken against settlers [ou des entreprises œuvrant à la colonisation]it is not appropriate for the State of Israel to apply such a harsh measure [la détention administrative, NDLR] against settlers “, declares Israel Katz in a press release.
Settler violence against Palestinians on the rise since the start of the war in Gaza
A gesture by the Israeli government towards the most radical fringe of settlers, while the latter already benefit from very broad impunity when they attack Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. Widely documented facts which have increased sharply since the start of the war in Gaza.
Also readWest Bank: chased out by Israeli settlers, Palestinians find the village of Zanuta in ruins
In recent months, several countries have begun sanctioning extremist Israeli settlers, including the United States, Israel’s close ally. This week, Washington targeted an Israeli construction company, Amana, active in the occupied West Bank.
One of the leaders of the settler movement denounced this measure, castigating “ the swan song of the Biden administration » The religious nationalist far right in Israel has high expectations of the return of Donald Trump at the White House, hoping for support from the United States for the annexation of part of the occupied Palestinian territories.