Israel stated it deported a Palestinian attorney and activist to France on Sunday, claiming he has ties to a banned militant staff, in spite of objections from the French govt.
The expulsion of Salah Hammouri underscored the delicate standing of Palestinians in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, the place maximum hang revocable residency rights however don’t seem to be Israeli electorate. It additionally arrange a conceivable diplomatic spat with France, which had time and again appealed to Israel to not perform the expulsion.
“I’m happy to announce that justice was served today and the terrorist Salah Hammouri was deported from Israel,” Israel’s interior minister, Ayelet Shaked, announced in a videotaped statement.
Hammouri was born in Jerusalem but holds French citizenship.
Israel says Hammouri is an activist in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group that it has labeled a terrorist organization. He has worked as a lawyer for Adameer, a rights group that assists Palestinian prisoners that Israel has banned for alleged ties to the PFLP.
Hammouri spent seven years in prison after being convicted in an alleged plot to kill a prominent rabbi but was released in a 2011 prisoner swap with the Hamas militant group. He has not been convicted in the latest proceedings against him.
Israel, however, claimed he continued his activities with the banned group, stripped him of residency, and placed him last March in administrative detention — a status that allows Israel to hold suspected militants for months at a time without charging them or putting them on trial.
Hammouri was not charged in the current case, but Shaked ordered the deportation when his detention order expired. Israel’s Supreme Court had rejected an appeal against the decision to revoke Hammouri’s residency status.
France’s Foreign Ministry condemned Israel’s deportation of Hammouri after he landed in Paris on Sunday, saying it has “taken full action, including at the highest level of the State, to ensure that Mr. Salah Hamouri’s rights are respected, that he benefits from all legal remedies and that he can lead a normal life in Jerusalem, where he was born, resides and wishes to live.”
Israeli human rights teams additionally criticised the deportation.
Last yr, Hammouri used to be amongst six human rights activists whose cell phones have been discovered by way of unbiased safety researchers to were inflamed with adware made by way of the Israeli corporate NSO Group.
