Israel re-arrests Palestinian-French activist minutes after release
Israeli authorities have ordered the re-arrest of a French-Palestinian attorney who has been held behind bars for more than a year without trial or charge, less than an hour after he was released.
Palestinian political prisoner Salah Hamouri, 33, was first arrested at his home in a pre-dawn raid in Israeli-occupied east Jerusalem al-Quds on August 23 last year, based on unspecified allegations that Israeli authorities tended to describe them as confidential.
But in fact he was instantly detained under arbitrary Administrative Detention, a controversial policy of detention without trial or charge, which is renewable for six-month periods.
Since his arrest, Salah, who also hold French citizenship, spent nearly all of his detention in a prison in the Negev Desert Detention Camp in the southern parts of the occupied territories, until he was released, according to his lawyer Mahmoud Hassan, on Sunday at Jerusalem al-Quds police headquarters.
Upon his release, his lawyer said that his client was forbidden to participate in any celebrations, demonstration or protests for a period of a month and was also required to post a bond of 3,000 shekels ($825).
It is not yet clear why Jerusalem-born Salah, who was a political prisoner for more than six years, was re-arrested almost minutes after his release.
Salah is married to Elsa Lefort, a French woman, and the couple has a child. After he was arrested last year, the Israeli authorities were quick to deport his wife to France, citing “security reasons”, along with their child and banned her from entering Palestine, while at the same time denying him the right to travel, thus separating the family.
French President Emmanuel Macron had discussed several times the case of Salah with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, asking that his rights be respected and that he could see his son and his wife, but all to no avail.
Salah, who was working for the human rights organization Addameer before his detention, was for the first time detained on 2005 on the allegations of attempting to assassinate rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader and founder of the party of the ultra-orthodox Shass, who died in 2013.
He was, however, released in 2011 as part of a swap of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli trooper held captive in the besieged Gaza Strip for more than five years.
Salah has always insisted on his innocence and strongly denied allegations leveled against him by Israeli authorities.
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