[Hammouri had been held in Israeli administrative detention based
on ‘secret evidence’ without charges since March.]
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PALESTINIAN-FRENCH RIGHTS LAWYER HAMMOURI DEPORTED BY ISRAEL  
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Joseph Stepansky
December 18, 2022
Aljazeera
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_ Hammouri had been held in Israeli administrative detention based on
‘secret evidence’ without charges since March. _

Salah Hammouri has been deported by Israel, Abbas Momani/AFP

 

Israel says it has deported Palestinian-French human rights lawyer
Salah Hammouri, capping a years-long attempt to expel the
Jerusalem-born advocate who had been in detention without charges
since March.

The deportation came amid calls
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French President Emmanuel Macron to oppose the deportation to France,
whose foreign ministry spokeswoman had previously said Hammouri
“must be able to exercise all his rights and lead a normal life in
Jerusalem, his city of birth and residence”.

France’s Foreign Ministry condemned Israel’s deportation of
Hammouri after he landed in Paris, 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.”

It was not clear what, if any, steps the French government might take.

Hammouri landed in Paris just before 10am local time. Wearing a black
track suit and black and white keffiyeh, or Palestinian headscarf,
around his neck, he was greeted by his wife and a group of supporters.

Some hugged him, and others clapped in support.

Speaking to reporters, Hammouri accused Israel of “ethnic
cleansing” and said his deportation was meant “to show the
generations that nobody can resist Israel.” He vowed to fight the
order.

“I will continue my right to resist against this occupation until I
have the right to go back to my country,” he said.

Earlier, the Justice for Salah campaign released an audio message from
Hammouri, which he said was recorded as he was being “forcibly
deported and uprooted from my homeland”.

“Be assured my beloved homeland that I coercively and forcibly leave
you today. I leave you today from prison to exile,” he said. “But
rest assured I will always remain the person you know. Always loyal to
you and to your freedom.”

In a brief statement on Sunday, Israel’s interior minister, Ayelet
Shaked, called Hammouri a “terrorist” and confirmed he had been
deported. Hammouri’s Jerusalem residency status had previously
been revoked
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Israel in 2021.

Israeli authorities have said Hammouri is an activist in the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Hammouri has denied the
allegation.

Sunday, 18 December - The Israeli settler-colonial authorities
unlawfully deported French-Palestinian lawyer and human rights
defender Salah Hammouri from his hometown, Jerusalem, to France for
“breach of allegiance” to the occupying state.#justiceforsalah
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#libérezsalah
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pic.twitter.com/RKTmh5hv9U [[link removed]]

— JusticeforSalah (@JusticeforSalah) December 18, 2022
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A field researcher with the Ramallah-based Addameer prisoners’
rights group, Hammouri’s detention in March sparked condemnation
from local and international rights observers.

In early December, Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s regional
director for the Middle East and North Africa, charged that Hammouri
had been detained “in retaliation for his tireless campaigning for
an end to Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians”.

She called the detention part of Israel’s “chilling long-term
policy aim of reducing the number of Palestinians in East
Jerusalem”.

“Unlawful deportation from the occupied Palestinian territories
constitutes a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a war
crime,” she said, noting that such crimes would fall under the
jurisdiction
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the International Criminal Court (ICC). “Deportation carried to
maintain a system of apartheid constitutes a crime against
humanity.”

Hammouri, a 37-year-old father of two, had been held in
Israeli administrative detention
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which allows for the imprisonment of Palestinians without trial or
charge based on “secret evidence”, which neither the detainee nor
his lawyer can view, for an indefinite period of time.

Saleh Hammouri's family has been notified that Israel will attempt to
deport him TOMORROW.
Will the French authorities agree to accept him under these
circumstances (deportation of a member of the indigenous population
against his will)?? [link removed]

— HaMoked (@HaMokedRights) December 17, 2022
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Israel has long maintained the policy is necessary for security to
prevent state intelligence from being released, but the Israeli human
rights organisation B’tselem says the method is used “as an
alternative to criminal trial … when [the authorities] do not have
sufficient evidence for indictment”. The organisation labels the
procedure “punitive and retroactive” and says Israel uses it to
“detain Palestinians for their political opinions and for engaging
in non-violent political activity”.

The detention order was renewed in June and September, with the
deportation announced on Sunday coming at the end of the latest
extension.

In a tweet late on Saturday, the HaMoked rights group, which had been
fighting Hammouri’s deportation, questioned whether France would
support the “deportation of a member of the indigenous population
against his will”.

France has not released a public statement on the deportation.

In a letter published by the New Arab last week, Hammouri, who is
among a cadre of rights workers suing Israel
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their phones were allegedly hacked by Pegasus spyware made by the
Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group, detailed his detention, which he
called Israel’s “eighth attempt to expel me”.

He had previously served a seven-year prison sentence on the charge of
plotting to kill a former chief rabbi of Israel, a deal he took in
lieu of deportation to France, although he has always denied the
allegation.

His wife, Elsa Lefort, had also been deported earlier.

“These are the means of forcible expulsion, of gradual uprooting
from my land, my home, my social surroundings, my history in this
place,” he wrote.

“But these are not my memories alone, but those of a people whose
Nakba (“Catastrophe”) has not ceased since 1948, experiencing
daily arrest, expulsion, surveillance, monitoring, harassment, killing
and displacement,” he said.

On Sunday, the Justice for Salah campaign called the deportation a
“horrifying escalation in Israel’s systematic practices of
ethnically cleansing Palestinians from illegally annexed and occupied
Jerusalem (al-Quds)”.

Palestinians born in occupied East Jerusalem are not granted Israeli
citizenship. They are instead given permanent residency, which can be
revoked.

_JOSEPH STEPANSKY is a reporter and producer for Al Jazeera covering
US foreign policy, human rights and conflict. He was previously a
staff reporter at the New York Daily News, where he covered cops,
crime, and the people caught in between._

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