Israel’s new defense minister has said security forces would no longer apply administrative detention orders to Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, and thus only Palestinian suspects can be held indefinitely without trial.
The changes in the controversial policy are the latest example of an emboldened Israeli far-right, and come in the shadow of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, and the election of President-elect Donald Trump.
Israel Katz, a long-time ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was appointed defense minister earlier in November and announced the decision on Friday.
In June, the number of Palestinians held in administrative detention was 3,340, more than double the number held before the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7 2023, according to Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem. The Palestinian Prisoner Society said Saturday that over 11,800 Palestinians had been arrested since the current conflict began.
B’Tselem said 37 Israeli citizens and foreign nationals were also being held. It is unclear whether any Israelis have been released as a result of the policy change.
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid criticized the decision to cancel administrative orders for Israelis on X, calling it “dangerous and irresponsible.”
But the announcement drew praise from Israel’s ultranationalist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on X, who called it a “correction of an injustice of many years and justice for those who love the land.”
Most governments view the West Bank, an area nominally administered by the Palestinian Authority and seen by Palestinians as integral to a future state, as illegally occupied by Israel.
In 2019, Trump abandoned the long-held U.S. position that West Bank settlements are illegal before it was restored by President Joe Biden. The U.S. has grown increasingly critical of some Jewish settlers in the area seized by Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Last week, the U.S. imposed sanctions on an Israeli settler group it accused of helping perpetrate violence in the area.
Annexation on the horizon?
Settler immunity from administrative detention coincides with heightened rhetoric from Israeli ministers calling for the West Bank to be annexed.
Earlier in November, Israel’s ultranationalist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said “the time has come” to annex parts of the area, and said he would seek Trump’s support for the move.
Discussions on plans to annex parts of the West Bank were held between Israel and Washington during Trump’s first term, and Smotrich said that he would push his government to engage with the incoming administration to gain support.
“We will apply the sovereignty, together with our American friends,” he said.
Meanwhile, Trump’s pick for ambassador to Israel, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, said in a recent interview with Arutz Sheva network that there is “no such thing” as the West Bank, and that “there is no occupation.”
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 733 Palestinians and 40 Israelis have been killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7. It also said there has been a sharp rise in settler attacks on Palestinians in the area during this time.
The U.N. said four Palestinian children have been killed every week in the West Bank on average since the current conflict began, a three-fold increase from the first nine months of 2023.
Some 1,200 people were killed during Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, and 250 taken hostage. More than 44,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces in the war in the war since then, according to local officials.
Israeli settlers have been galvanized by the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, and Trump’s victory has only added “an extra layer” to their conviction, said Yossi Mekelberg, a senior consulting fellow with Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa program.
“The settlers think that this is their time,” he told NBC News.
“They can dictate almost everything on this government, from expansion settlements, from a range of legislation. They are already looking for locations for settlements in Gaza, and they are even talking about South Lebanon.
“In their view, everything is coming together.”
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin reaffirmed the U.S.’ “ironclad commitment” to Israel’s security in a phone call with Katz on Saturday.
Austin urged the government of Israel to continue to take steps to improve the “dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza,” and emphasized the U.S. commitment to securing the release of all hostages, including U.S. citizens.
