Photo: Protesters opposite Maj.-Gen. Numa’s residence; Photo credit: Shlomo Melet
Saturday, January 27, 2018, 23:26 On January 27, after Shabbat, approximately 20 family members and friends of Itiel Zuaretz protested opposite the residence of Major-General Roni Numa, the GOC of the Central Command, in the Ramat-Chen neighborhood of Ramat Gan. The protesters called on Maj-Gen. Numa to cancel the administrative distancing order issued to Zuaretz and allow him to return home. The police blocked off the street so that protesters could not approach the residence.
The administrative order signed by Maj.-Gen. Numa distances Zuaretz from Yehuda and Shomron for six months. Zuaretz, a resident of Adei Ad, is a married father of six children and therefore the order forces the entire family to either leave their home for six months or separate from the father. As with all administrative orders, Zuaretz’s order was issued without holding a trial.
Honenu Attorney Menasheh Yado is assisting Zuaretz with legal procedures.
Itiel Zuaretz has been distanced from his home several times over the past few years and was also falsely detained.
In August 2016 approximately two and a half weeks after serving a 10-month administrative order, he received a new order. At the time Honenu Attorney Menasheh Yado mentioned that a summary of the case which was presented before the new order was issued, did not include even one new incident from the past 10 months during which Zuaretz was under administrative restrictions, which is significant in light of a July 2016 court decision: Judge Colonel Netanel Benisho, the President of the Military Court of Appeals, ordered that an administrative order be extended only if new and significant information is presented in the case of an individual whose order is being considered for extension.
In January 2017, Elisheva Chen, the senior registrar of the Jerusalem Magistrate Court, awarded Zuaretz 2,250 NIS compensation for a false detention in April 2016 when he was visiting relatives in Afula. Approximately an hour and a half after Shabbat ended on April 30, 2016, two policemen from the Afula Police suddenly arrived and called out to Zuaretz to come out into the yard and claimed that his car had been involved in a traffic accident. Several police detectives from the Department of Nationalist Crime in the Central Unit of the Yehuda and Shomron Police who were waiting in ambush on the street, quickly surrounded him and informed him that he had violated an administrative order and therefore was being detained. Being as the order was applicable only in Yehuda and Shomron, Honenu’s legal staff immediately prepared a civil suit for false detention, which as stated above was successful.
Photo: Protesters opposite Maj.-Gen. Numa’s residence; Photo credit: Shlomo Melet