“The minor from Yitzhar” has become its own paradigm in rightwing Israeli media (leftwing outlets are yet to report this outrage).

A 15-year-old boy who, by decree of the former defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, was ordered out of Judea and Samaria, where his parents live, in the settlement of Yitzhar. It was an administrative decree, issued at the whim of the permanent martial law authorities that have governed the Jewish communities in the “territories” for fifty years.

Said decree was not required to specify what the minor from Yitzhar had done to bring on himself the wrath of the minister, it was simply issued, and turned into a living hell the life of the boy, his parents and his family and family friends inside the “green line” where he was forced to seek shelter.

The latter part, about the living hell, has to do with the requirement of Israel police to check on civilians who are removed from Judea and Samaria by administrative decree. Police show up around three in the morning, the preferred time for action by police everywhere, ring bells, bang on doors, wake up entire neighborhoods, because it’s what police do. And so, it shouldn’t surprise anyone to discover that the minor from Yitzhar faced a hard time convincing his parents’ family and acquaintances — including his grandparents who live in Petach Tikvah — to give him shelter for too many nights in a row, because they need their sleep.

Take for instance last Monday morning, that’s very early Monday morning, when policemen and detectives arrived at a home in Karmiel, in northern Israel, where the minor from Yitzhar was staying, and picked him up for interrogation at the local police station. The reason was that the fax (what decade is this?) he was supposed to send police, telling them his address that night, had been sent just after the required time.

Ah, police harassment, that unique combination of abuse of power and contempt for civilians, it’s why Israeli police patrol cars don’t say silly stuff like the LAPD’s “To protect and to serve,” or the NYPD’s CPR: “Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect.” It just says “Police,” and if you’re a minor from Yitzhar tormented by the remnant ire of an already deposed defense czar, you know that patrol cars only spell harassment.

At noon on Monday, the legal aid society Honenu represented the minor from Yitzhar against the police’s attempt to keep him in jail until they’re done prosecuting him for that late fax.

Petach Tikvah Peace Court Judge Hannah Schnitzer-Zaga refused to proceed with the silly hearing and compelled the prosecution to reach a livable compromise with the defense. So they did, and the minor from Yitzhar was released on the same terms as before, including having to send those faxes on time. Also, police were warned not to carry out those late night surprise visits they enjoy so much.

Honenu attorney Chai Haber who represents the minor from Yitzhar noted that “it looks like all of the country’s security issues have been resolved, because otherwise it’s hard to understand why law enforcement is investing so many resources in harassing a 15-year-old boy with no priors.”

No one doubts that police harassment of the boy will continue. Attorney Haber related an incident when one night, when the minor from Yitzhar found himself without a place to sleep, he walked into a police station asking for help finding shelter for the night — so they opened a new case against him for breaking the terms of his release.

MKs Bezalel Smotrich (Habayit Hayehudi) and Yehuda Glick (Likud) have requested an urgent Knesset discussion of the case of the minor from Yitzhar, whose life has been interrupted and uprooted for several months now by what appears to be Moshe Yaalon’s sheer vindictiveness. One man has the power to put an end to this cruelty is Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan (Likud). His email is gerdan@knesset.gov.il.

By Jonathan Benedek/TPS

Nazareth (TPS) – The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) published on Thursday that it arrested three Jewish teenagers who allegedly torched a car in an Arab village last month and sprayed the words “price tag” and “revenge” in Hebrew, in response to a deadly terror attack in Tel Aviv.

The Nazareth Magistrates Court has extended the detention of two of the suspects until Sunday, while the third minor who is suspected of assisting the two others will remain under arrest until Friday. The prosecution intends to file an indictment next week.

The 15-year-old suspects, who were arrested on Sunday and Monday this week, allegedly committed the nationalistically-motivated attack in response to the terrorist attack at the Sarona market in Tel Aviv that killed 4 Israelis.

According to the police, the suspects confessed to committing the arson attack. The suspects also reportedly revealed during the investigation that they had already planned a revenge attack for a long time beforehand.

However, the suspects’ attorney Lior Bar-Zohar challenged the veracity of the reported confession, particularly due to the fact that they had been prevented from meeting with an attorney until Wednesday night.

“The heavy-handed, intensive interrogation combined with not meeting with an attorney and the fact that these are normative minors who have never been arrested, casts a heavy shadow on the confession,” said Bar-Zohar. “We expect the court to examine the admissibility of the confession and whether it is based on real evidence, or just on manipulations and threats by the interrogators.”

Bar-Zohar belongs to Honenu, a legal aid organization that represents and defends legal rights of right-wing Jewish suspects. Honenu echoed Bar-Zohar’s arguments in a statement on Thursday.

“Denying minors of the basic right to receive legal representation has become the norm in cases of property crimes such as this one,” said Honenu. “Unfortunately, we do not see the same level of determination in investigating the hundreds of incidents in recent months in which Arabs threw rocks and molotov cocktails at Israeli targets.”

Michael Bachner contributed to this article.

GOC Home Front Command Chief Maj. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg on Sunday rejected a plea by the parents of a 15-year-old boy who had been ordered to leave his home three weeks ago by an administrative decree, one of the last such decrees issued under former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. Eisenberg ordered the minor to be out of his parents’ home and the community of Yitzhar in Samaria by 9 AM Monday.

The administrative order forbids the minor to set foot in Judea and Samaria, and he must observe a nightly curfew at the home of his grandparents, in Petach Tikvah. When it turned out that the Petach Tikvah address was not available, the minor received a temporary stay, pending the hearing on Sunday this week.

It should be noted that the administrative decree does not specify what past actions of the boy in question merited the expulsion from his home environment, other than a general statement about his being a threat to national security.

At the hearing, attorney Chai Haber from the legal aid society Honenu, told representatives of the Major General that his client had nowhere to go. He noted that it is next to impossible to get anyone to agree to board the minor because police are known to keep a close watch on curfew detainees and pay late-night visits to their addresses, knocking on doors and waking up entire neighborhoods.

The Major General’s response has been that the minor must nevertheless vacate his parents premises by 9 AM as ordered.

The minor’s father said on Monday morning, “My son has nowhere to go, he lives here, his family lives here, it’s inconceivable that one day they’d present him with an order of evacuation. The impact of such an expulsion on a minor are unacceptable. Who will take responsibility? Who will care for my child? The Major General sleeps well with his children in his home while my son is being thrown out to the street. We cannot accept this.”

A teenage boy expelled from his home by the Civil Administration under orders by the Shin Bet intelligence agency (“Shabak”) is back for now.

The 15-year-old was also under orders not to talk to a 12-year-old neighbor and was expelled from the town in which he grew up, and both entire regions of Samaria and Judea.

It’s a little weird, the Honenu legal aid society pointed out.

But after a court battle on behalf of the boy, the Home Front Command responded to his attorney, Adi Kedar, that the teen will be allowed to remain under house arrest at his home at least until Tuesday, according to the Honenu civil rights organization.

It was last Tuesday that the teen received the restraining order forcing him out of the entire region of Judea and Samaria, including the home of his parents in Yitzhar.

He was also placed under house arrest at the home of his grandparents – but they vehemently refused to accept the task of becoming their grandson’s jailer. When it became clear that this condition was untenable, authorities and the family were granted 14 days in which to find an alternative.

But a placement has yet to be found. Who wants to be a jailer for a 15-year-old male who was raised free in the hills of Samaria?

The conditions expected of someone taking on the task of monitoring someone on house arrest are nothing to be trifled with. One can easily lose one’s employment having to fulfill such an obligation, not to mention one’s sanity.

Attorney Adi Kedar contacted Home Front Command in an urgent letter to inform the authorities that a placement has not yet been identified, and an extension of an additional 14 days must be granted in order to continue to seek a placement.

But Kedar also noted that the entire order is a violation of the teen’s civil rights and a violation of international conventions as well. He added a reminder that the minor in question was not arrested, but rather was arbitrarily ordered out of his parents’ home and out of the entire region at the decision of the commanders of the Jewish Department of the Shin Bet intelligence agency.

In response, the Home Front Command has said it will hold a hearing on the matter in the coming days.

Israel’s secret police Shabak, or rather the Jewish Section of the clandestine organization, is losing its marbles, according to legal aid society Honenu. Over the past few days it appeared as if the organization has been taking advantage of the crossover period between old and new defense ministers to get in all its most outlandish decrees, including issuing long lists of names which several rightwing activists are now banned from talking to. As is always the case with those administrative decrees, Shabak need not cite specific charges or even suspicions against their target, nor do the accused get to defend themselves. But a Wednesday decree issued by Shabak truly sounded like part of the mad hatter’s party in Alice in Wonderland.

In its latest administrative decree, a 15-year-old boy has been banned from staying in his parents’ home in the community of Yitzhar, south of Shechem in Samaria. The same boy was also banned from contacting 26 people, including his 12-year-old neighbor.

The Yitzhar boy must be some Jewish extremist, since he’s just come off a 4-month house arrest, by decree of former Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. But last night police raided his home and presented him with two new decrees, which accuse him of “involvement in violent activity against Palestinians.”

One of the new administrative decrees, signed by OC Central Command Maj. Gen. Roni Numa, bans the boy from entering Judea and Samaria, which includes his parents’ home in Yitzhar. The other order, signed by GOC Home Front Command Maj. Gen. Yoel Strick, compels him to remain under nightly house arrest in his grandparents’ home in the Sharon area, inside the green line. That same decree prohibits contact with his younger neighbor, who must be another Jewish extremist.

“Removing a minor from his parents’ home without a court hearing and without evidence is an exceptionally severe move,” Honenu said in a statement, adding that “the ban on contact with 12- and 13-year-olds shows the Shabak is actually spying on these kids, and that the members of the Jewish Section of Shabak have reached rock bottom. When will someone wake up?”

It should be noted in this context that an Israeli politician strongly identified with rightwing Jews has very recently become defense minister and should be supervising the secret police’s shenanigans. Seeing as the new appointee, Avigdor Liberman, hails from a country with a great tradition of Jews being harassed and tormented by the Jewish Section of the secret police, he might want to put an end to it over in the Jewish State.

Only days before MK Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) takes over as defense minister, the Shabak secret police on Friday issued an unprecedented administrative detention, ordering a Jewish youth to avoid contact with a list of 87 individuals, legal aid society Honenu announced Monday morning. The decree, issued by GOC Home Front Command Major General Yoel Strick, also ordered the same youth to be under house arrest at night. An additional decree, signed by OC Central Command Major General Roni Numa, bans the same youth from entering Judea and Samaria.

The Shabak ordered a Jewish youth to avoid contact with a list of 87 individuals.

Like all administrative detentions, the orders against this youth do not mention any charges pending against him, or even any specific suspicions. The reason for the severe limits on his civil rights is stated as: “To secure state security, public peace, and maintaining public order.”

Israeli citizens could probably observe on Monday to see if any of the above conditions have improved following these orders, which were issued on the recommendations of the Jewish section of the secret police.

Administrative detentions have been the modus operandi of outgoing Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who used them generously in place of thorough police investigation. His reign will be remembered, among other things, for the torture interrogations of Jewish suspects for long weeks without access to an attorney or their families. Considering Ya’alon’s repeated concern for Israel’s democracy, it’s evident he probably did not complete the entire course on this subject.

Honenu’s statement included the organization’s hope that “the new defense minister will learn this subject during his grace period, and maybe succeed in stopping the values that have already been falling down this slippery slope.”

Meanwhile, it is unclear whether Meir Ettinger, the grandson of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, will be released from his ten months of administrative detention, imposed by Ya’alon last August.

A woman, 17, an activist in the Returning to the Mount group, was arrested on Thursday morning on suspicion of violating the public peace, after she hung next to the entrance to the Temple Mount two signs protesting the closing of the site to Jewish visitors on Holocaust Remembrance Day under the guise of a Muslim holiday.

One of her signs read “No entrance to Jews and Dogs,” which was used to bar Jewish customers from businesses in Europe before and during the Holocaust. The other sign compared the closing of the holy site to Jewish visitors to the barring of Jews from public place in Europe in the same dreadful period.

Source: Returning to the Mount

Police arrested the young woman and hauled her to a nearby station where she was interrogated. Her attorney, Rehavia Piltz, from the legal aid society Honenu, said he expected her to be released and ordered not to set foot on Temple Mount and the area near the gate to the compound.

Piltz issued a statement saying, “It is a very serious matter that police do not permit Jews to protest the police own racist actions — preventing Jews from entering the Temple Mount based on their ethnicity.”

Source: Returning to the Mount