ROISSY-EN-FRANCE, France — French-Palestinian human
rights lawyer Salah Hamouri, held without charge in Israeli prisons since March
accused of security offences, arrived in Paris on Sunday following his
expulsion from Israel condemned by Paris.
اضافة اعلان
Hamouri, 37, had been held in Israel under a controversial
practice known as administrative detention, which allows suspects to be
detained for renewable periods of up to six months.
He arrived at the French capital’s Charles de Gaulle airport
on Sunday morning, an AFP correspondent saw, the culmination of a lengthy
judicial saga after his deportation.
“I have changed location but the fight continues,” an
emotional Hamouri said at the airport, where he was welcomed by his wife Elsa,
politicians, NGO representatives, and supporters of the Palestinian cause.
“I have an enormous responsibility to my cause and people.
We can’t abandon Palestine. Resistance is our right.”
Israel’s interior ministry earlier on Sunday announced the
deportation following Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked’s decision to withdraw
his residency status.
“We condemn today the Israeli authorities’ decision, against
the law, to expel Salah Hamouri to France,” the French foreign ministry said in
a statement.
An Israeli military court has accused Hamouri of being a
member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and said he
“endangers security in the region”.
Hamouri holds French citizenship and was ordered into
administrative detention in March.
Hamouri denies links to the PFLP.
‘Illegal’ deportation
The French foreign ministry said Paris had been “fully
mobilized, including at the highest level of the state”, to enable Hamouri to
defend his rights, benefit from all possible assistance and lead a normal life
in his native East Jerusalem.
“France also took several steps to communicate to the
Israeli authorities in the clearest way its opposition to this expulsion of a
Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem, an occupied territory under the Fourth
Geneva Convention,” it added.
“It’s a happy day for a family reunited but for the
Palestinian people, it’s a sad day,” Amnesty International’s France chief,
Jean-Claude Samouiller, told AFP.
He described the expulsion as a “crime of apartheid”.
Supporters said Hamouri’s deportation from his birthplace by
an “occupying power” was illegal.
Amnesty International and French NGOs said Hamouri’s
deportation aimed to hinder his human rights work and was 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.
Hamouri 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.
Hamouri was released in December 2011 as part of a prisoner
swap.
He has always maintained his innocence.
Born in East Jerusalem, Hamouri does not have Israeli
nationality, but he held a residency permit that Israeli authorities revoked.
“We didn’t think it was possible to deport somebody from his
birthplace,” Hamouri’s mother Denise said earlier.
Israel has occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem since
the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
Last month, he was informed he would be deported, but the
expulsion was delayed as his lawyers contested the case.
‘A great achievement’
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 January 1.
“It is a great achievement to have been able to cause, just
before the end of my term, his expulsion,” Interior Minister Shaked said on
Sunday.
Benjamin Netanyahu, winner of the November 1 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
occupation forces said could no longer operate legally in the West Bank, after
Defense Minister Benny Gantz claimed they were collaborating with the PFLP.
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.
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