Category: Israel

Central Command chief Major General Avi Bluth has issued a wave of unusually harsh administrative restriction orders in recent days against Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria. The orders confine residents to full house arrest for months, alongside severe additional restrictions like daily check-ins at police stations.

About a year and a half ago, Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered a halt to the use of administrative detention orders against Jewish residents in Judea and Samaria under his authority. But the power to issue other administrative orders—sometimes no less severe—remained in Bluth’s hands, and he’s been using it with increasing frequency.

“The current wave of orders is unusual both in severity and in who they target. The orders effectively imprison people within the walls of homes that are often not even their own. Among those hit with the orders are married men with children, a yeshiva student at an outpost, and two young men who got engaged just days earlier and are now barred from even holding their wedding.

Bluth issued an administrative order against Tal Yanon Dardik—married father of three and manager of the sheep farm at Kfar Tarfon in the Binyamin region. Absurdly, Dardik is required to spend the next six months at his mother-in-law’s home, a widow who is deaf. In an urgent letter sent through his attorneys at the Honenu legal aid organization, Dardik explained that his mother-in-law was never consulted about this and her condition doesn’t allow for additional people staying in the house.

Meanwhile, Shin Bet investigators delivered another administrative order to Elishiv Bruchi—a yeshiva student from the Chesed L’Avraham in Har Hatzor in Binyamin. Bruchi studied and worked at the outpost, which is an established and legal location in every respect. Bizarrely, he received a full house arrest order for four complete months.

Additional administrative orders were delivered in recent days to two residents of Binyamin and Gush Etzion. Moshe Goldis—a 20-year-old shepherd from Givat Makneh Avraham who was recently wounded in an Arab attack in the grazing areas—and Malachi Lehongdim, a 21-year-old from Givat Tel Talpiot. Both were placed under absolute house arrest for six full months.

The order signed against Goldis was issued just one day after his engagement. Lehongdim also received a similar order just days after getting engaged, and now both are barred from preparing for their weddings, booking a hall, or even signing a rental contract because the order prevents them from leaving their homes even for these purposes.

“I was shocked yesterday to receive without any warning a delusional administrative order that strips away my freedom in the harshest way possible,” Elishiv Bruchi said today. “In the middle of your life, they come to you, and with the stroke of a pen, impose restrictions on you not far from prison without you having any ability whatsoever to defend yourself against them.”

According to him, “Administrative orders that are supposed to be a preventive tool for ticking bombs have become a tool for wholesale punishment against anyone conducting legal activity that the security establishment doesn’t like. These are draconian and inhumane orders that need to disappear from the world, all the more so under a right-wing government,” Bruchi added.

An IDF spokesperson responded: “Restriction orders are signed following a Shin Bet recommendation based on intelligence and evidentiary infrastructure submitted for review by the military commander in the area. The recommendation indicates that security reasons exist for issuing the order to prevent the danger posed by that individual. The military commander examines requests to issue orders in a thorough, substantive, and serious manner, while giving weight to the consequences resulting from issuing the order.

“The IDF uses all tools at its disposal to prevent and handle nationalist crime incidents of all types, and the use of this tool has proven effective, as reflected in the decline in the number of incidents. Such incidents are serious in themselves, divert forces from defense and offensive missions, and harm the security of the area. It should be clarified that those subject to the orders can submit individual requests, and these are examined. The military commander’s decisions are subject to judicial review, which examines the decision on its merits and the intelligence information underlying it. Due to the confidentiality of the information and invasion of privacy, we cannot elaborate on what is attributed to those subject to the order.”