Israeli forces, Thursday, re-arrested, prominent Palestinian legislator and senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in an overnight incursion into her home.
Khaleda Jarrar, a 56-year-old member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, was arrested at 3 am local time (00:00 GMT) at her home in the central occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, located 10 kilometers north of Jerusalem, and taken to an unknown area, local media reported on Thursday.
Her daughter Yara Jarrar said in a post on Twitter that the house was surrounded by more than 70 Israeli soldiers who arrived in 12 military vehicles.
“Mom and sister were asleep when they approached,” Yara said.
The Palestinian lawmaker has been jailed multiple times. She was released last February after spending 20 months in “administrative detention” — an illegal practice under which an individual is held without a trail.
Jarrar, a staunch advocate of Palestinian prisoners’ rights, said after her latest release that she would continue to campaign for the release of all Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons and detention centres.
According to Samidoun, a Palestinian prisoner solidarity network, she played a leading role in supporting the education of the minor girls held there, organizing classes on human rights and in review for mandatory high school examinations when the prison authority denied the girls a teacher.
Jarrar was last arrested in July 2017, when a large number of Israeli troopers invaded her home. Her husband, Ghassan, said Israeli forces also seized her computers during the raid.
Israel’s internal spy agency, Shin Bet, later announced in a statement that Jarrar was arrested along with a Palestinian activist for “promoting terror activities,” without providing any further information.
Jarrar is one of the most outspoken critics of the Israeli occupation and has repeatedly slammed the Tel Aviv regime’s atrocities against Palestinians.
Israel has been denying the lawmaker the right to travel outside the occupied Palestinian territories since 1988. She campaigned for months in 2010 before receiving the permission to travel to Jordan for medical treatment.
In August 2014, Jarrar received a “special supervision order” from the Israeli military, which ordered her to leave Ramallah to live in the West Bank city of Ariha, also known as Jericho.
However, Jarrar set up a protest tent outside the Palestinian Legislative Council in Ramallah, where she lived and worked, until the controversial order was overturned later in September that year.
According to reports, a total of 13 Palestinian lawmakers are currently held in Israeli detention facilities without any trial under the so-called administrative detention, which is a policy according to which Palestinian inmates are kept in Israeli detention facilities without trial or charge.
Some Palestinian prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to 11 years.
Israel currently holds 495 Palestinian prisoners in administrative detention, according to ADDAMEER Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, an NGO that works to support Palestinian political prisoners.
Dr. Hanan Ashrawi Condemns Israeli Nightly Raids and Detention of Elected Officials, Political Activists
For her part PLO Executive Member Dr. Hanan Ashrawi Condemns Israeli Nightly Raids and Detention of Elected Officials, Political Activists.
Dr. Ashrawi said :”We strongly condemn the overnight raids of Ramallah, Bethlehem and other Palestinian cities by Israeli occupation forces and their targeted detention of several activists, including elected representative and political leader Khaleda Jarrar. These overnight raids are meant to terrorize and intimidate the entire Palestinian people while the abduction of activists, writers, and representatives is nothing short of illegal abductions.
She added that “This is the third time Israeli occupation forces have detained representative Khaleda Jarrar, who is also a prominent human rights defender, from her home. She was held for months as an administrative detainee in both prior incidents.
“We call on the international community to assume its responsibilities and put an end to Israel’s illegal policy of mass arbitrary detention of Palestinian citizens. Equally, we call for unequivocal international condemnation of Israel’s illegal use of administrative detention, which has allowed the occupation authorities to detain at least fifty-four thousand Palestinian men, women, and children since the beginning of the 1967 occupation.” she said.
In this regard, we also reaffirm our solidarity with and concern for administrative detainees on hunger strike to protest their illegal detention, including 24 year-old Hiba Al-Labadi, whose health has seriously deteriorated after 38 days of protest hunger strike. Hiba and all administrative detainees must be released immediately. This illegal and cruel practice must end.
Source: Palestine News Network
Edited for IMEMC: Ali Salam
