On the evening of February 26, 2023, after a shooting attack in which Israeli brothers Hillel Yaniv and Yagel Yaniv were murdered on the main road in the Palestinian town of Huwara, a pogrom was carried out in the town, home to several thousand residents. Hundreds of far-right activists set fire to dozens of homes, livestock pens, chicken coops and shops, as well as hundreds of cars, injured about 100 people, and forced residents to flee their homes to avoid being burned alive.

The pogrom in Huwara marked the beginning of a chain of similar attacks that continues to this day across the West Bank and has led to the displacement of dozens of Palestinian communities. These attacks were accompanied by words of encouragement from senior figures in the government and the Knesset, their associates and allies, and public influencers in Israeli society, particularly on the far right.

On January 26, 2026, the General Prosecutor’s Office rejected an appeal against the closure of a criminal investigation into Elisha Yered on suspicion of incitement to genocide, terrorism and violence. 

Yered, a far-right activist associated with the so-called “Hilltop Youth,” which operates in the occupied territories against Palestinians, writes for the far-right settlers’ website HaKol HaYehudi (the Jewish Voice). At the time, he also served as spokesperson for Limor Son Har-Melech, a member of the Knesset from the far-right party Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power).

Far-right activisit Elisha Yered (Photo: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

On October 28, 2025, State Prosecutor Amit Aisman rejected an appeal filed by attorney Eitay Mack against the decision not to open a criminal investigation for incitement against MK Son Har-Melech. About two hours after the pogrom began, she arrived in Huwara and posted on X that she had come to the town “to support the justified outcry of hundreds of residents of Samaria who came out to protest.” 

In a letter to Mack, who had appealed the closure of the investigation into Yered, attorney Nehama Zussman from the Appeals Department of the State Prosecutor’s Office wrote: “The inquiries and relevant materials were brought before State Prosecutor Amit Aisman, who saw no reason to change the decision of the Deputy State Prosecutor (Special Affairs), attorney Alon Altman, not to open a criminal investigation against Yered.” She added that “the Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office, which also reviewed the relevant materials, recommended that the case remain closed.”

The demand to investigate Yered – whom Mack described as one of the leaders of the “Hilltop Youth” – arose after he tweeted in 2023 “Erase Huwara,” and in another tweet called on the defense minister “to wake up and erase not only Huwara but also the villages around it.”

“Yered’s explicit call to erase villages and to treat the entire Palestinian population as an enemy and a target is shocking and resembles incitement that has led to genocide elsewhere,” Mack wrote in the appeal he submitted in 2024. He noted that at the time Yered had about 4,000 followers on Twitter, some of whom reposted his tweets, and that additional pogrom-like attacks by far-right activists had taken place in Palestinian communities.

In response, the prosecution said that during questioning Yered claimed that “his remarks were written as an independent journalist who has for years sought to explain and reflect to the public what he views as the reality in Judea and Samaria, and that he did not call on individuals to take action.” It also noted that Yered said his remarks were directed at security authorities and government officials, not the general public.

The prosecution therefore concluded that “it cannot be established at the level required in criminal law” that Yered’s statements constitute incitement offenses, and the case was closed. “In light of the above, the State Prosecutor found no grounds to intervene in the decision not to open an investigation.”

The Minister Gets a Pass

An appeal filed by attorney Mack on behalf of human-rights organizations against the Deputy State Prosecutor’s decision not to investigate Bezalel Smotrich on suspicion of incitement to genocide, terrorism and violence was also rejected. The complaint followed Smotrich’s “like” on a tweet by Davidi Ben Zion, deputy head of the Samaria Regional Council, who wrote that “the village of Huwara should be erased today” and added that “there is no room for mercy.” At the same time, far-right activists were carrying out a pogrom against residents of the town.

A few days later, at a conference organized by TheMarker, Smotrich repeated his remarks, while slightly qualifying them: “I think the village of Huwara should be erased. I think the State of Israel should do it – God forbid not private individuals.”

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, February 2026 (Photo:Oren Ben Hakoon/Flash90)

Following this, the organizations Combatants for Peace, Yesh Gvul, Machsom Watch, Re’acha Kamocha, Windows – Channels for Communication, Mothers Against Violence, and Jordan Valley activists demanded that a criminal investigation be opened against Smotrich.

About a year and eight months after the complaint was filed, attorney Alon Altman, the Deputy State Prosecutor (Special Affairs), announced that he had decided not to open a criminal investigation, “among other things, in light of the fact that Minister Smotrich explicitly clarified his intentions.”

In their appeal against that decision, the organizations – through attorney Mack – argued that the “explanation” provided by the minister at the TheMarker conference “only incriminates him.”

According to the organizations, the qualification Smotrich added at the conference is understood by far-right activists as a “wink.” In this context they referred to a letter sent by then Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar to government ministers regarding the “implicit backing” received by rioters. “It is impossible to interpret the minister’s statements and publications as anything other than incitement and encouragement to continue carrying out pogroms in Huwara and other Palestinian villages,” they argued.

“In fact,” the organizations wrote in their appeal, “the Huwara pogrom marked the beginning of a chain of pogroms that continues to this day.”

“Given Smotrich’s public standing – as a senior minister and a member of the security cabinet – the severity of his statements and publications, his repetition of this horrifying intention at the TheMarker conference, the severity of the pogrom that took place in the town of Huwara and the enormous damage caused to residents and their property there, as well as the additional pogroms that occurred in other Palestinian villages – it appears that the elements of incitement to genocide, terrorism and violence are indeed present,” the organizations wrote, calling on the Attorney General’s Office to order without delay the opening of a criminal investigation against the minister.

The organizations were recently notified that their appeal had been rejected.

The decision rejecting the appeal stated that Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara concluded there was no reason to change the decision of the Deputy State Prosecutor, “among other things, in light of the minister’s explanations at the time that he did not intend to call for violent acts by private citizens, but rather aimed to call on the political leadership to act to eradicate terrorism through the army – explanations the minister repeated on several other occasions.” 

Another reason for rejecting the appeal, the decision said, was “the ambiguity of the substantive element arising from its form - a ‘like’ of another person’s tweet.”

The prosecution also noted that it had decided not to open the investigation requested by Mack against the author of the tweet, Ben Zion, and that this too was a factor in rejecting the organizations’ appeal against Minister Smotrich.

Both Yered and Minister Smotrich have faced international sanctions. For example, the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on Yered, describing him as “an unofficial spokesperson for the Hilltop Youth.” In its statement, the British government said Yered "has a history of making inflammatory statements that incite religious hatred and violence, including justifying the killing of Palestinians on religious grounds and calling for the takeover of Palestinian land and the expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank."

Regarding Minister Smotrich, the British government justified the sanctions by stating that he is "responsible for engaging in, inciting, promoting and/or supporting activity that amounts to a serious abuse of the right of individuals not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, in particular acts of aggression and violence against Palestinian individuals in the West Bank."

This article is based on two articles published in Hebrew on February 22 and March 8.