The police raid; Photo credit: Free use
Friday, November 8, 2019, 9:43 On the night of Thursday, November 7, detectives from the Central Unit of the Yehuda and Shomron Police accompanied by Special Forces (Yassam) raided the home of a family in Yitzhar. Policemen broke down the door with hydraulic equipment and searched all of the rooms in the house, while the reason for the raid was not clear to the family. Then the policemen presented a detention warrant for Neriya Zarog, who is not fulfilling the administrative distancing order that was served to him a month ago. The police claimed that they thought that Zarog was at the family’s home.
The family asked the policemen to leave and told them that Zarog did not live at the site and was not in their home. However the policemen continued the search for a long time, waking up all of the family’s children who were at home, including a baby.
Honenu Attorney Adi Keidar sharply criticized the conduct of the police: “This is a new level of citizens’ rights violation. Prima facie, the raid was not legal. Entering a family’s home late at night requires great caution on the part of the police, and solid information that the individual whom they are searching is at the site, which they did not have in this incident. The use that the police made of the detention warrant of an individual to break down another family’s door is unacceptable and disturbing.”
In late August the GOC of the Central Command, Major-General Nadav Padan, announced that he intended to serve Zarog with an administrative order distancing him from his home and almost all of Yehuda and Shomron. Approximately one month later Maj.-Gen. Padan did sign the order. However Zarog has not fulfilled the order and has remained in Yitzhar.
On Wednesday, November 6, large numbers of police, Special Forces (Yassam) and policemen from the Central Unit of Yehuda and Shomron Police, surrounded Zarog’s home in the Kumi Ori neighborhood of Yitzhar in an attempt to find and detain him. Several hours later Zarog publicized a video clip in which he called for an end to administrative orders: “Thank G-d we are still here, two months after the order [was announced]. We will stay for another month, here in Yitzhar. I was sorry to hear that the policemen came to my home today. It is unfortunate that they come like this, by force. We will stay here despite the order. A Jew isn’t driven from his home by a piece of paper. We will stay here forever. It is time to put an end to the administrative orders.”