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- French-Palestinian human rights lawyer Salah
Hamouri has been expelled by Israel, and deported to France. - Hamouri had been held in “renewable”
administrative detention, without charge, since March. - Amnesty International and French NGOs slammed the
move, saying Hamouri’s deportation aimed to curb his human rights work.
Jerusalem – Israel expelled French-Palestinian
human rights lawyer Salah Hamouri on Sunday, the culmination of a lengthy
judicial saga in which he was accused of security offences and held without
charge since March.
Hamouri, 37, had been held under a controversial
practice known as administrative detention, which allows suspects to be
detained for renewable periods of up to six months.
He “was deported this morning to France
following Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked’s decision to withdraw his residency
status”, the ministry said in a statement.
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His family and supporters were expecting the
deportation to take place on a Tel Aviv-Paris flight by Israeli airline El Al.
The supporters said Hamouri’s deportation from his
birthplace by an “occupying power” was illegal.
An Israeli military court sentenced Hamouri, who
holds French citizenship, to administrative detention in March. It accused him
of being a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP),
and said he “endangers security in the region”.
Israel, the United States, and the European Union
consider the PFLP a “terrorist group”. It has been implicated in
several deadly attacks on Israelis.
Hamouri denies links to the PFLP.
Residency permit
He has been arrested and jailed by Israeli authorities
on several occasions, including in 2005.
Following that arrest, he was tried and convicted
by an Israeli court on charges of plotting to assassinate Ovadia Yosef, a
prominent rabbi and spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas political
party.
Hamouri was released in December 2011 as part of a
prisoner swap.
He has always maintained his innocence.
In this file photo taken on 1 October 2020, French-Palestinian lawyer and field researcher for Addameer (Conscience), Salah Hamouri, speaks during an interview in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Born in East Jerusalem, Hamouri does not have
Israeli nationality, but he held a residency permit that Israeli authorities
revoked.
Israel has occupied the West Bank and east
Jerusalem since the 1967 Six-Day War.
Last month, he was informed he would be deported,
but the expulsion was delayed as his lawyers contested the case.
‘A great achievement’
There had been increasing indications since Friday
evening that Hamouri would be expelled. Arab-Israeli lawmaker Aida Touma-Sliman
on Saturday wrote to Defence Minister Benny Gantz in an appeal to prevent
Hamouri’s removal.
Earlier this month, Israeli authorities confirmed
the revocation of his residency, paving the way for Hamouri’s imminent
expulsion despite a new administrative detention hearing scheduled for 1 January.
Interior
Minister Shaked said on Sunday:
It is a great achievement to have been able to cause, just before the end of my term, his expulsion.
Benjamin Netanyahu, winner of the 1 November legislative
elections, is expected to form a new Israeli government with allies from
ultra-Orthodox and far-right parties.
Hamouri worked for the prisoner support group
Addameer. In November 2021, it was among six Palestinian civil society groups
that Israel’s army said could no longer operate legally in the West Bank, after
Gantz said they were collaborating with the PFLP.
‘Illegally’ spied on
Hamouri’s lawyer Leah Tsemel had expressed fear
that the future government would resort to other deportations of Palestinians
born in Jerusalem.
On Sunday, Amnesty International and French
non-governmental organisations said Hamouri’s deportation aimed to hinder his
human rights work.
They said it was also part of Israel’s
“long-term political objective to diminish the Palestinian
population” of annexed east Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the
capital of a future state.
“We didn’t think it was possible to deport
somebody from his birthplace,” Hamouri’s mother Denise said earlier.
In April Hamouri, along with rights groups, filed a
complaint in France against Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group for having
“illegally infiltrated” his mobile phone with the spyware Pegasus.
He is one of several Palestinian activists whose
phones were hacked using the Pegasus malware, according to a report in November
by human rights groups.