Honenu Attorney Nati Rom; Photo credit: Honenu
Tuesday, March 17, 2026, 12:27 One week ago, the GSS detained a Yehuda and Shomron resident and banned him from meeting with an attorney. The GSS and the police requested a remand extension, which Petah Tikva Magistrates Court Judge Dan Baumann denied. The police then appealed the decision to the Lod District Court. At a hearing yesterday (Monday), Judge Dror Arad-Ayalon leveled criticism at the police for filing an appeal and released the detainee, writing in his decision, “I did not find an error in the ruling by the lower court that the grounds against the detainee are insignificant at this time.” Yesterday evening, the detainee was released from a GSS facility in central Israel where he had been held under severe prison conditions.
At the District Court hearing, Honenu Attorney Nati Rom, who is representing the detainee, argued that the grounds against him are particularly weak, and in light of the time that has passed since the incident without any investigation progressing, he should be released. Attorney Rom stated, “The detainee is being held in isolation, in a two meter by two meter cell, and banned from meeting with an attorney. … I demand his release. He is an innocent man.”
Attorney Rom stated, “We welcome the District Court’s decision to reject the appeal and immediately release my client. As we argued from the start, there were not even minimum grounds to detain him. My client came to the assistance of a shepherd who was attacked and whose sheep were stolen.
“The District Court’s decision to reject the appeal and immediately release my client sends a message against the disproportionate use of extreme methods of interrogation. The ease with which GSS interrogations, solitary confinement, and bans on meeting with an attorney are used against Jewish residents of Yehuda and Shomron is an injustice. The decision to release my client today was appropriate. However, there is much left to be done to fix the system.”