Dozens of Israeli lawmakers call for release of settlers detained without trial following Hawara pogrom

Israeli settlers throwing stones in Hawara, October 2022

Hagar Shezaf reports in Haaretz on 14 March 2023:

50 coalition Knesset members demanded Tuesday that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant release from administrative detention four settlers, two of whom are suspected of being involved in the riots in Hawara last month.

In a letter sent by nine ministers and 41 deputy ministers and Knesset members, Gallant was asked to stop arresting settlers without trial “as if they were the enemy of the state.” Gallant rejected the demand, calling on the signatories to “trust the recommendations of the Shin Bet.”

“Using administrative detention without holding a legal procedure should be reserved for very extreme cases,” the letter reads, “such as those known to us by murderous enemies from among the haters of Israel.”

Gallant replied that the detainees “chose to act in violation of the law, do not represent the settlement movement and by their action even harm it”, and that the acts the detainees committed, and even planned to continue, “constitute a watershed moment and a mark of Cain for our society.”

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