Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz has signed an order keeping a Jewish settler under administrative detention.
The settler is accused of participating in a terrorist attack on Palestinians and Israeli activists from the “Rabbis for Human Rights” organization in the West Bank village of Burin in January.
The 21-year-old is suspected of acts of terror, arson and vandalizing of Palestinian vehicles, and assault of left-wing activists in the West Bank as well as in Israel.
He will be the only Jewish Israeli in administrative detention and will remain in detention until May 6.
The order, which was handed to him Friday, stated that the suspect will stay in detention out of concern for “the security of the country and the public.”
Gantz’s order comes as Israeli Public Prosecution claimed it failed to prepare an indictment against him.
On January 21, the detained settler was among a group of extremist settlers who carried out a bloody attack on Palestinians and wounding eight Jewish members of the human rights organization. They also uprooted nearly 300 olive trees in Deir Sharaf village, west of Nablus.
The suspect, a resident of the Havat Ronen outpost, has been under arrest for three weeks. When he was first arrested, the Shin Bet security service did not allow him to meet with an attorney.
The administrative law is based on the British Emergency Law of 1945, which Israel used to arrest Palestinians and imprison them without trials for various periods automatically renewed.
The administrative imprisonment relies on a case that the Israeli security services claim is confidential. It is rarely applied on Jewish citizens.
