by Our Foreign Desk

ISRAEL’S defence minister has ordered a teenage Jewish extremist to be detained without trial amid a spate of settler attacks on Palestinians.

Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon signed an order late on Tuesday to place 18-year-old extremist Mordechai Meyer, from the West Bank settlement of Maaleh Adumim, in “administrative detention” for six months.

His detention followed the arrest and questioning of fellow extremist Meir Ettinger by the Shin Bet security service.

Shin Bet said Mr Meyer was suspected of attacks on Palestinian property, June’s arson attack on the Christian church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes on the Sea of Galilee and an attack on another church in Jerusalem.

Mr Meyer is the first Israeli to be held in administrative detention, although thousands of Palestinians have been held without trial in recent years. In June there were 370 detainees, according to Israeli occupation monitor B’Tselem.

His lawyer Adi Keidar told Israeli Army Radio that there were “less drastic steps” Israel could use against his client.

He claimed he opposed the measure, both for Israelis and Palestinians.

“Legally speaking, you can’t take a person and put him in jail without having evidence against him,” Mr Keidar said.

Extremists from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank are suspected of Friday’s vicious firebombing attack on a village near Nablus which killed 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh and severely burned his parents and four-year-old brother.

Graffiti scrawled in Hebrew on the walls of their home read “price tag,” a settler slogan for vindictive attacks on Palestinians.
Earlier that week, the Israeli government had demolished a half-built illegal settlement.