Israeli far-right ministers visit settler accused of killing Palestinian teenager

Far-right Israeli lawmakers visited on Sunday a settler charged with the shooting and killing of a Palestinian 19-year-old last week.

Members of the Knesset (MKs) Tally Gotliv, of Likud, and Zvi Sukkot, of the Religious Zionism Party, visited the hospital where suspect Yehiel Indore is being detained after killing Qosai Jammal Mi'tan on Friday.

The move was condemned by Knesset legal adviser, Sagit Afik, who said that the permission to visit suspects in detention was being given "selectively", according to Israeli daily Haaretz.

MKs are barred by law from visiting convicted prisoners and criminal suspects, except when the national security minister grants special permission in order to safeguard police investigations. The current minister in this role is Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right MK and settler activist who has previously been convicted of inciting racism and supporting a terrorism group.

Meanwhile, Palestinian lawmaker Ahmad Tibi of the Hadash-Ta'al party had been waiting for more than two months for permission to visit a security prisoner, Afik said. It would appear that Gotliv and Sukkot's requests to see Indore were granted almost immediately.

"Today it was brought to my attention by MKs that requests by coalition MKs to visit prisoners, and even those who have been detained for questioning are approved very quickly, even within few hours," Afik said in a letter to the national security ministry's legal adviser.

"Surely it is appropriate that the ministry’s swift response time, which is welcome in itself, should be uniformly applied to all members of the Knesset," Afik said.

Tibi requested to visit the Palestinian prisoner Walid Daqqa, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for his alleged role in a 1984 kidnapping and murder an Israeli soldier and reportedly is suffering from cancer.

Israeli settler Indore sustained head wounds in the West Bank violence on Friday after armed settlers from the illegal outpost of Oz Zion allegedly entered the Palestinian village of Burqa, opening fire and killing Mi'tan as well as injuring at least four other Palestinians.

Sukkot shared photographs of the visit on X (formerly known as Twitter), saying: "I just came to the hospital and asked to talk to the wounded [man].

"The police officers allowed it but asked that I don't talk to him about the investigation and the incident, which is what happened," he said, adding that the officers were allegedly present during the 40-minute meeting.

"We haven’t met before," Sukkot said. "We have common acquaintances… I don't see anything problematic here."

The Labor Party’s Merav Michaeli criticised the visits.

"The political wing comes to visit the military wing," she wrote on X. "This is how the organization works. A party of terror-supporters in Netanyahu's coalition."