Court Orders House Arrest for Israeli Settlement Security Coordinator Accused of Shooting Palestinian Woman

The Jerusalem District Court has ruled that a security coordinator for a West Bank settlement area, charged with shooting at a Palestinian couple's car and seriously wounding the woman, will be held under house arrest rather than in jail while his case proceeds.

Pinchas (Hasi) Ran, 37, serves as the security coordinator for the area near Itamar. The court ordered him moved to house arrest in the Golan Heights. Judge Elad Persky pointed to Ran's clean criminal record and his military service. The judge also found that prosecutors had not shown a concrete risk that he would interfere with the proceedings now that an indictment has been filed.

The indictment, submitted on Friday, accuses Ran of causing serious injury with aggravated intent and of obstruction of justice.

According to prosecutors, Ran drove into the Palestinian village of Akraba, near Nablus, on September 18. This was outside the area assigned to him, and he was traveling in a Ranger off-road vehicle with an armed career soldier. Prosecutors say military officials had earlier warned him, after several unusual incidents, to stay within his jurisdiction and follow procedures, especially the rules on using firearms.

In the village, Ran allegedly stopped passersby and checked their identity cards without any legal authority. He then called on the driver of a Mazda carrying a married couple to stop. The indictment says the driver sped up out of fear of violence, having noticed that the men were not soldiers and that one of them wore a mask.

Prosecutors allege that after the car got past the Ranger, Ran fired at least three shots at it as it moved away, intending to hit the vehicle and the people inside. Two bullets struck the car and the woman, named in the indictment as Aseel Bani Jaber. One bullet entered her upper back and lodged in her lung near her heart, and another hit near her buttock. She had surgery to remove the bullets and stayed in hospital for several days.

The indictment further claims that Ran went back to the scene to look for cartridge cases in order to hinder a possible judicial proceeding. When security officials later asked him about a shooting in the area, he allegedly said he had not heard of it and had not been there.

Ran rejects the prosecution's account. Honenu, the legal aid organization representing him, says a vehicle with no license plates drove toward him and his companion in what they took to be an attempted ramming. According to the group, the two jumped out of the way and Ran then fired into the air to stop the vehicle.

The defense gave the court letters from commanders describing Ran's reserve service and his conduct in combat. One former battalion commander said explicitly that he was not addressing the allegations, whose details he did not know, but offering his view of Ran's character. The letters also noted that Ran returned to service after his brother was killed on October 7, 2023.

Ran's lawyer, Nati Rom, welcomed the decision and called on prosecutors to reconsider the case. A preliminary hearing is set for November 12.