Israel’s new defense minister has said security forces would no longer apply administrative detention orders to Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, and thus only Palestinian suspects can be held indefinitely without trial. Israel Katz, a long-time ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was appointed defense minister earlier in November and announced the decision on Friday. In 2019, Trump abandoned the long-held U.S. position that West Bank settlements are illegal before it was restored by President Joe Biden. Settler immunity from administrative detention coincides with heightened rhetoric from Israeli ministers calling for the West Bank to be annexed. The U.N. said four Palestinian children have been killed every week in the West Bank on average since the current conflict began, a three-fold increase from the first nine months of 2023.

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Persons: Donald Trump, Israel Katz, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel Katz Bebeto Matthews, B’Tselem, Yair Lapid, Israel's, Itamar Ben, Trump, Joe Biden, Israel’s, Bezalel Smotrich, Trump’s, Smotrich, “, ”, Mike Huckabee, Yossi Mekelberg, Defense Lloyd J, Austin, Katz Organizations: West Bank, Palestinian Prisoner Society, National, Palestinian Authority, Arkansas Gov, Arutz, United Nations Office, Humanitarian Affairs, Chatham House’s, NBC, Defense Locations: Gaza, Lebanon, Israel, Bank, U.S, Washington, Arkansas, East, North Africa, South Lebanon