Israel has moved forward with its plan to reserve administrative detention solely for non-Jewish prisoners, despite warnings from the domestic spy agency, Shin Bet, against the controversial move.
The new law will make it illegal for Israeli citizens who are not members of proscribed terrorist groups to be held under administrative detention, meaning that the controversial order will effectively only apply to Palestinians.
The Ministerial Committee for Legislation gave a green light on Sunday to amendments to the Emergency Defense Regulation, which goes further and allows non-Israeli individuals to be detained even if they do not belong to a terrorist organisation but there are reasonable grounds they could threaten “national security or the public’s safety”.
Israeli media and NGOs have widely interpreted this change as targeting Palestinians and allowing settlers and Jewish extremists, who are the only other group affected by the law, to avoid detention under the order due to their Israeli citizenship.
Administrative detention, which has been widely condemned by human rights groups, allows Israeli authorities to detain Palestinians indefinitely and without trial.
The law is sponsored by MK Simcha Rothnaof the far-right Religious Zionism party, with notes on the bill saying: “Israel is fighting for its life and its citizens’ lives against evil terrorist organizations that seek to destroy it.”
Despite the alarmist language of the bill, the head of Shin Bet has warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose coalition government includes far-right parties, that the changes would “result in an immediate, severe, and serious harm to the security of the state” due to Israeli citizens being exempt from the detention orders.
Even right-wing parties have opposed the bill with MK Gideon Saar of the New Hope – United Right coalition saying on X that the bill proves Netanyahu’s government is “consciously working to favour the interests of extreme fringe elements over the public good”, according to Haaretz.
Israel has held thousands of Palestinians under administrative detention – often in harrowing conditions – with a sharp increase in these orders since the war on Gaza began on 7 October.
Israeli settlers, who are occwasionally jailed under these orders, have carried out waves of attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including a bloody rampage through the village of Hawara, with one local killed, and houses and vehicles torched by the rioters.
