Current:Home > ContactPalestinian activist is expelled by Israeli forces from his home in a volatile West Bank city -InvestPro
Palestinian activist is expelled by Israeli forces from his home in a volatile West Bank city
View
Date:2025-04-28 01:22:54
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli troops expelled a prominent Palestinian activist from his home in a West Bank city at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after he hosted a foreign journalist and a well-known Israeli activist.
Critics accused the military of using the cover of the Israel-Hamas war to expel Issa Amro from volatile Hebron, the only city in the West Bank where Jewish settlers live among Palestinians.
The military had no immediate comment.
Amro said the journalist came to his house in Hebron to gather material for an article about the situation in the occupied West Bank since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war nearly three weeks ago, after a brutal rampage by Hamas gunmen from Gaza in Israeli border communities.
In the West Bank, the Israeli military stepped up arrest raids in pursuit of Hamas militants, and dozens of Palestinians, including several minors, were killed, most in clashes with troops, but also during protests and in attacks by Jewish settlers, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Amro said soldiers forced him and his guests out of his house and told him over the weekend that he was not allowed to return until notified. They then expelled him to an area of Hebron that is administered by the Palestinian Authority, a self-rule government that has civilian control over Palestinian population centers.
“They don’t want me to talk to the media,” Amro said. On Oct. 7, the day of the Hamas attack, he added, he was detained at a military base where he was held for 10 hours and beaten despite being handcuffed, blindfolded and gagged.
Israeli activist Yehuda Shaul was with Amro when he was expelled from his house. He said soldiers and police ordered him, the foreign journalist and Amro to leave without producing any kind of official order.
“When something happens in Gaza, right away, it’s ‘Let’s beat up Issa,’” Shaul said. “I think that can serve as a compass for the direction of where things are going and what the dynamics are in Hebron.”
Amro has been detained by the Israeli military multiple times. He told The Associated Press on Thursday that he has never been expelled from his home before.
He is one of more than 200,000 Palestinians who live in Hebron. Hundreds of hard-line Jewish settlers live in the heart of the city in heavily fortified enclaves guarded by Israeli troops. There is a long history of tensions between the two communities.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 war, and the Palestinians want it to form the core of a future state. The Palestinians and much of the international community view the presence of half a million Jewish settlers in the West Bank as a violation of international law and an obstacle to peace.
Amro’s lawyer, Michael Sfard, has demanded that his client be allowed to return to his house, saying the military authority in Hebron “just took advantage of the situation to do what they always wanted to do, and that is to expel Issa from the city.”
“It’s not a complicated issue: The pretext was that he hosted guests. In no scenario is hosting guests a justification for expulsion,” Sfard said. “No one would ever tell Jews in Hebron not to host people.”
“I am very sad that the Israeli legal system, perhaps like legal systems elsewhere, doesn’t protect basic rights in times of war,” he added. “But ultimately it (the expulsion) will end because it isn’t legal.”
veryGood! (749)
Related
- Taylor Swift makes surprise visit to Kansas City children’s hospital
- Katy Perry Responds After Video of Her Searching for Her Seat at King Charles III's Coronation Goes Viral
- With Order to Keep Gas in Leaking Facility, Regulators Anger Porter Ranch Residents
- Some States Forging Ahead With Emissions Reduction Plans, Despite Supreme Court Ruling
- Working Well: When holidays present rude customers, taking breaks and the high road preserve peace
- Trump’s FEMA Ignores Climate Change in Strategic Plan for Disaster Response
- See it in photos: Smoke from Canadian wildfires engulfs NYC in hazy blanket
- Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story’s Arsema Thomas Teases Her Favorite “Graphic” Scene
- Federal hiring is about to get the Trump treatment
- How Harris is listening — and speaking — about abortion rights before the midterms
Ranking
- Are Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp down? Meta says most issues resolved after outages
- Hospitals have specialists on call for lots of diseases — but not addiction. Why not?
- Why Pregnant Serena Williams Kept Baby No. 2 a Secret From Daughter Olympia Until Met Gala Reveal
- New Yorkers hunker down indoors as Canadian wildfire smoke smothers city
- Trump invites nearly all federal workers to quit now, get paid through September
- New York business owner charged with attacking police with insecticide at the Capitol on Jan. 6
- After being bitten by a rabid fox, a congressman wants cheaper rabies treatments
- Hospitals have specialists on call for lots of diseases — but not addiction. Why not?
Recommendation
Mets have visions of grandeur, and a dynasty, with Juan Soto as major catalyst
A blood shortage in the U.K. may cause some surgeries to be delayed
SoCal Gas Knew Aliso Canyon Wells Were Deteriorating a Year Before Leak
After being bitten by a rabid fox, a congressman wants cheaper rabies treatments
'Vanderpump Rules' star DJ James Kennedy arrested on domestic violence charges
Blake Lively's Trainer Wants You to Sleep More and Not Count Calories (Yes, Really)
Reward offered for man who sold criminals encrypted phones, unaware they were tracked by the FBI
Clarence Thomas delays filing Supreme Court disclosure amid scrutiny over gifts from GOP donor