Opposition MKs launched sharp criticism against Likud MK Tally Gotliv on Sunday after she visited Yehiel Indore in the hospital. Indore is suspected of firing the shots that killed 19-year-old Palestinian Qusai Ma’atan in the West Bank town of Burka on Friday evening.
Indore was hospitalized at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem following head wounds caused by Palestinian rock throwers.
Gotliv said she went to visit him to “see with my own eyes this delusional phenomenon: that a man [who] lives in Judea and Samaria, whose whole sin was that he went with his sheep to graze them in pastures, and not as the IDF falsely announced that they entered a village, with his skull crushed, after brain surgery they did yesterday, [and] he is in intensive care and is under arrest.”
“The political arm visiting the military arm. This is how the organization works. A party of full terrorism supporters within [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s coalition."
Merav Michaeli
Merav Michaeli slams Netanyahu's government of being full of terror supporters
Labor head Merav Michaeli criticized the visit by coalition MKs, calling it a “political arm visiting the military arm. This is how the organization works. A party of full terrorism supporters within [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s coalition.”
הזרוע המדינית מגיעה לביקור אצל הזרוע הצבאית. ככה עובד הארגון. מפלגה של תומכי טרור על מלא בתוך הקואליציה של נתניהו. pic.twitter.com/edID5j3Ng5
— Merav Michaeli מרב מיכאלי (@MeravMichaeli) August 6, 2023
In response, Otzma Yehudit MK Yitzhak Kreuzer said: “If it had been Arabs, Michaeli would have waited and not taken a stand. This is an invalid attempt to put pressure on law-enforcement officials.”
Religious Zionist Party MK Zvi Sukkot, who also visited Indore, said: “The young man underwent brain surgery and is still recovering from the trauma he experienced. This is what a person who saw death before his eyes looks like. He calls on the police to investigate as soon as possible the Arabs who attacked the Jews in the area and to bring the truth to light as soon as possible.”
Some MKs criticized what they said was a double standard between Jews and Arabs who get arrested and require hospital care, citing the instance when Hadash-Ta’al MK Ahmad Tibi was barred from visiting Sheikh Raed Salah, a known promoter of terrorism.
Other coalition MKs, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they did not understand the outrage, given that a full investigation of what happened on Friday has not been completed yet.
Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.