RAMALLAH, Palestine

Palestine on Friday condemned Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz's decision to suspend administrative detention orders against illegal Israeli settlers, fearing that it will encourage “supremacists” to commit more crimes against Palestinians.

Earlier on Friday, the Israeli Ministry of Defense announced Katz’s decision to suspend administrative detention orders against illegal Israeli settlers accused of attacking Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

In a statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said Katz’s decision will "encourage supremacist settlers to commit acts of terrorism against Palestinians and their properties, escalate crimes against them, and further foster their impunity."

The statement noted that only a few illegal Israeli settlers were detained as "token arrests" as part of a revolving door policy.

The ministry demanded "an international effective action to rein in settlers’ militias, end their impunity," and protect Palestinians from Israeli occupation violations.

Peace Now, which monitors and opposes Israeli settlement activities in the occupied territories, said in a statement that "the cancellation of administrative detention orders for settlers alone is a cynical and reckless move that whitewashes and normalizes the rise of Jewish terrorism under the cover of war."

Administrative detention, which relies on undisclosed evidence, has predominantly been used against Palestinians, with 3,443 currently held in Israeli prisons, according to the Palestinian prisoners' affairs groups.

There are no official Israeli figures on illegal settlers subjected to administrative detention, but estimates indicate that only a few have ever been detained under this law.

According to Peace Now, there are more than 720,000 illegal settlers in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Tension has been running high in the West Bank due to Israel’s brutal war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed over 44,000 people, mostly women and children, following a Hamas attack last year.

Nearly 795 Palestinians have since been killed and over 6,400 others injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied territory, according to the Health Ministry.

In July, the International Court of Justice issued a landmark advisory opinion that declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land “illegal” and demanded the evacuation of all existing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar