A Palestinian rights group said Saturday that a decision by Israel to stop issuing administrative detention against illegal settlers accused of attacking Palestinians in the West Bank “puts them above any legal accountability.”
The decision at this time “is evidence of the extent of the occupation’s audacity, its disregard, and its arrogance toward the international system and its structures,” Qadoura Fares, the head of the Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ Affairs, said in a statement.
Fares said it “facilitates settlers in committing more crimes against Palestinians and removes some of the formal restrictions, of which administrative detention was part.”
He emphasized that the decision by defense chief Israel Katz “reflects Israeli racism, as it comes at a time when the occupying authorities are expanding the use of administrative detention against Palestinians, with around 3,500 Palestinians currently detained under this policy.”
Fares demanded that the international community “break its deadly silence regarding the Palestinian people and their rights.”
The Israeli Defense Ministry announced Katz’s decision Friday to suspend administrative detention orders against illegal Israeli settlers.
Administrative detention, which relies on undisclosed evidence, has predominantly been used against Palestinians, with 3,443 currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian prisoners’ affairs groups.
There are no official Israeli figures on illegal settlers subjected to administrative detention, but estimates indicate that only a few have ever been detained under the law.
In recent months, many Western countries, including the US, the EU and the UK, have announced sanctions against settlers and settler organizations in the West Bank for committing crimes against Palestinians
According to the Israel group Peace Now, which focuses on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict, there are more than 720,000 illegal settlers in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Tension has been running high in the West Bank due to Israel’s brutal onslaught against the Gaza Strip, which has killed north of 44,000 victims, mostly women and children, following an attack late last year by the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas.
Nearly 795 Palestinians have since been killed and more than 6,400 injured by Israel in the occupied territory, according to the Health Ministry.
The International Court of Justice issued a landmark advisory opinion in July that declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land “illegal” and demanded the evacuation of all existing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.