Settlers detained without trial over rampage on Palestinian village

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant ordered detention without trial against three West Bank settlers whom intelligence information indicates were involved in mob attacks targeting Palestinians.

Gallant signed the orders at the recommendation of the Shin Bet security service hours after the three were arrested. The intelligence information suggests that two of the three were involved in a mob attack last month on the Palestinian village of Umm Safa in the central West Bank and the third involved in a mob attack on Al-Luban Al-Sharqiya, a Palestinian village next to the Eli settlement.

The three were arrested by police and weren’t brought before a judge for a hearing on their detention period for several hours. Orders were issued to place all three under “administrative detention” – detention without trial. According to the orders, each will spend a different length of time in detention – six months, four months, and three months.

Two of the three detainees had been arrested and released about two weeks earlier as part of the investigation into the attack on Umm Safa.

The orders raised the number of Jewish administrative detainees to eight. There are  1132 Palestinians held in detention without trial.

The IDF has been criticised for failing to pursue settlers who attack Palestinians. Retired colonel Doron Meinrath recently told The Jewish Independent that the army enabled settler violence by frequently failing to defend Palestinians or arrest marauding settlers.