Honenu: Inside the legal machine defending Israeli extremists

In 2025, Israeli society became embroiled in debate after leaked footage of Israeli guards raping a Palestinian detainee at the Sde Teiman military base was released to the public.

The right justified the assault as part of Israeli wartime efforts, while the left supported then-Military Advocate General Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi’s decision to release the video as necessary for upholding Israeli democracy.

The dual narrative, though, erased the atrocity itself, focusing on the actions of Tomer-Yerushalmi instead of the heinous crimes allegedly committed by the soldiers.

By March 2026, the scandal barely made headlines when the military’s top lawyer dropped all charges against the five guards.

The cancellation of their indictment was thanks to a group called Honenu, who hailed the acquittal as a legal victory.

Worst of the worst: Honenu's clientele

Established in 2001 by Shmuel Meidad, a longtime resident of Kiryat Arba, an illegal Israeli settlement in Hebron, Honenu represents Israel’s worst of the worst.

The group’s namesake loosely translates to “pardon” in Hebrew, and on its website, the organisation boasts that it has helped “over 15,000 Jews who have acted on behalf of Am Yisrael [nation of Israel in Hebrew]”.

The group’s lawyers have defended Jewish terror suspects like members of Bat Ayin Underground, a terrorist group based in the Bat Ayin settlement, convicted in 2002 of attempting to blow up a Palestinian girls’ school in occupied East Jerusalem, and a member of Jewish supremacist group Lehava, indicted in 2014 for arson at the Jewish-Palestinian school, Hand in Hand, in Jerusalem.

The group has also defended Yaakov Teitel, who murdered two Palestinians in 1997 and attempted to murder Israelis with explosive devices in 2008, and Ami Popper, convicted of murdering seven Palestinians in 1990.

Lawyers also represented three Israeli settlers who abducted 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir from his neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem in 2014 and then beat and burned the Palestinian minor alive in a forest outside of Jerusalem.

Individuals associated with Honenu have also gone on to be part of Israel’s current government. The most high-profile, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, worked as a lawyer for Honenu and represented Yinon Reuveni, convicted of setting fire to the Church of the Multiplication in the Galilee in 2017, and the Israeli settler convicted of murdering three members of the Dawabsheh family - a mother, father, and their 18-month-old son - in a firebombing attack on their home in 2015.

Hillel Roth, the civilian deputy in Israel’s Civil Administration, the military body overseeing the West Bank, also worked at Honenu, managing the organisation’s funds, before joining the government. 

Honenu doesn’t just offer legal assistance but has provided financial support to clients and their families, including after incarceration, as noted in a recent report from the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) National Office for Land Defence, which monitors violations in the West Bank.

“‘Honenu’ systematically provides direct financial support, salaries, and bonuses to the families of extremist settlers imprisoned for committing terrorist crimes or acts of violence against Palestinians,” the report said.

According to the PLO, this support includes monthly salaries to the detainees, bonuses to families with children, and covers transportation expenses for those visiting their relatives in prison.

For instance, the group fundraised for Yigal Amir, who assassinated then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, and provided financial assistance to Amir’s spouse.

A series of Haaretz investigations found that they’ve also given money to Popper’s and Teitel’s families, to Shahar Butbika, a border police officer who killed a Palestinian teenager by throwing him off his vehicle, and to the family of Orit Strook, a parliamentarian whose son was sentenced for kidnapping and abusing a Palestinian child.

After members of Bat Ayin Underground were convicted, their relatives also received financial support.

“This is a real hypocrisy because there's so much focus on how the PLO provides funding to families of Palestinians who are in prison for alleged nationalist crimes,” Natasha Soffer-Roth, research and analysis director at Diaspora Alliance, an organisation fighting against antisemitism and its political misuse, told The New Arab.

Who funds Honenu?

On its website, Honenu receives funding through Israeli and US tax-exempt donations from not-for-profit entities like the US-based Central Fund of Israel (CFI) and Friends of Zo Artzeinu, the US fundraising arm for Zo Artzeinu (This is Our Land in Hebrew), an Israeli movement opposing the Oslo peace agreement and now primarily focused on agricultural settlement activity.  

Following Haaretz reporting, the CFI briefly halted funding to Honenu in 2016 over its support to families of Jewish terror suspects. The funding was resumed once Honenu pledged to stop its financial support to the families - something the PLO report calls into question.

“Honenu has not changed. Its mission hasn't changed. Its language hasn't changed. The types of cases that it takes on have not changed,” Soffer-Roth, who has written about Honenu, told The New Arab.

“You only have to look at the fact that they were involved in the defence of the soldiers who were alleged to have sexually abused and tortured Palestinians at the Sde Teiman prison to know that their worldview and outlook and organising principles have not changed.”

CFI is still funnelling donations to Honenu from the US, according to Honenu’s donation page. Their total donations for 2024, the last year for which financial data is available for the organisation, are NIS 4,846,520 (over $1.6 million), with 14% coming from overseas donations.

At NIS 676,550 ($227,000), this is the largest annual overseas amount given to Honenu, according to available financial records.

“Honenu isn’t in any way seen as an extreme organisation at this point. The fact is that they still have tax-exempt status from the Israeli government, that just tells you everything you need to know in a way, because it's effectively subsidised by the Israeli taxpayer,” Soffer-Roth said.

“So, there's just a limit to how much you can consider an organisation that enjoys that status as being outside of the consensus in Israeli society and certainly in the political echelon.”

Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist covering Palestine and Israel. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The National, and Gulf News

Follow her on Twitter: @jess_buxbaum

Edited by Charlie Hoyle