Heads of municipal councils in Judea and Samaria on Monday urged Prime Minister Netanyahu for the first time to act with great determination to find the culprits in the Duma village arson murders. The council leaders also urged the Prime Minister to investigate the claims by the Jewish minors who are being detained in the case about violations of their human rights in the investigation. “The Ministerial Committee on the Shabak must be convened and exhaust the examination of the boys’ claims,” they said. “There must be an immediate clarification of the serious allegations of harsh torture of minors, which constitutes a serious violation of their human rights. We urge you not to drag the entire State of Israel into becoming a regime in which the investigator is also judge and executioner.”
The signatories on the urgent letter include Head of the Samaria Regional Council Yossi Dagan, Head of the Gush Etzion Council Davidi Perl, and Mayor of Mount Hebron Yochai Damari. They wrote Netanyahu: “We are aware of the growing international pressure in this matter, but there is not even a single reason to harm so gravely the foundations of democracy and justice. This undermines our foundations and leads to a miscarriage of justice.”
The council heads stressed that it is very important to find the criminals in the Duma case: “We are unequivocally—as is the absolute majority of our neighbors—against any murder and injustice and injury to innocent people, men, women and children. Our position is unequivocal and cannot be shaken… But we live in a democratic and Jewish state, where the fight for justice must not come at the cost of the bloodshed of innocent people.”