Honenu Attorney Adi Keidar; Photo credit: Honenu
Tuesday, December 1, 2020, 12:30 Following a request filed with the Petah Tikva Magistrates Court by Honenu Attorney Adi Keidar on behalf of a Yitzhar resident under partial house arrest, Judge Erez Melamed ordered the Yehuda and Shomron District Police to “exercise consideration and proportionality in all that relates to the visits at the home of the petitioner.”
Keidar responded to the ruling: “We will wait and see if the Israeli Police and the GSS implement the court’s decision. We expect the harassment of individuals under administrative orders and their families, and also the superfluous allocation of resources for this matter, to stop.”
Every night, sometimes several times a night, Yehuda and Shomron District policemen have been conducting checks to verify that a Yitzhar resident who is under administrative house arrest is at home. The administrative order is signed by the GOC of the Central Command, Major-General Tamir Yadai, and confines the approximately 20-year-old resident to his parents’ house all night. The entire family suffers from the frequent disturbances, and in light of the harassment, the resident has requested that the court order the police to carry out the checks in moderation and in a reasonable manner.
On behalf of the resident, Honenu Attorney Adi Keidar filed a request with the Petah Tikva Magistrates Court, asking that the police be issued an order limiting their visits to the house and demanding that the police carry out the checks at reasonable hours, without harassing the entire household, who have been woken up every time. The police have been arriving very late at night which the youth and his family say is very disruptive.
In the request, Keidar described how every night policemen come to the family’s house at unreasonable hours and light up the house with their flashlights, which causes the household great distress. One night the police came three times after midnight to verify that the resident was at home.
Keidar stated that “The police do not dare to do this with drug dealers and violent criminals,” and in light of that, although the resident is under an administrative order imposing house arrest on him at night “that should not give legitimacy to harassing third parties [his family], and an order should be given concerning the matter.”
All administrative orders are issued without a trial and without evidence being presented. Throughout the Yehuda and Shomron regions, many residents, including those without a criminal history, receive greatly restrictive orders, among them distancing from Yehuda and Shomron, partial or complete house arrest, and orders prohibiting contact with certain individuals. When the orders are issued, neither the recipients nor their attorneys are presented with evidence or specific charges, only general statements that the recipients are dangerous to the security of the area. The IDF and the GSS refuse to reveal the basis for their suspicions, claiming that the disclosure would damage national security.