MK Porush Accuses Government of Double Standard Over Prison Space

Following a State Comptroller report that exposed serious failures in the detention of security prisoners, MK Meir Porush of United Torah Judaism sent a sharp letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ministers Israel Katz, Itamar Ben Gvir and Yariv Levin. He demanded they immediately stop what he called a “systemic bankruptcy” and “shameless hypocrisy.”

According to the report, thousands of terrorists who took part in the October 7 massacre were released back to Gaza, sometimes without approval from the political leadership, because of a claimed shortage of prison space. The enforcement system also reportedly refrained for months from filing indictments against terror activists.

Against that backdrop, Porush asked how a state that says it has no room in prisons for Palestinian terrorists, and that released a Gaza hospital director who hid hostages, suddenly finds budget, personnel and detention space to arrest yeshiva students and yeshiva scholars. He argued that Israeli citizens’ blood is being neglected because of prison-system failures, while the authorities act with brutality and indifference toward Torah students.

Porush urged the ministers to intervene and redirect resources to what he said are the real needs, the imprisonment, trial and severe punishment of the terrorists seeking to kill Israelis.