Israel/OPT: Deporting Salah Hammouri would constitute a war crime

On Sunday 4 December, the Israeli authorities plan to deport French-Palestinian human rights defender Salah Hammouri, who has also had his Jerusalem residency status revoked.

NEWS

December 1, 2022

Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Heba Morayef, said:

“Salah Hammouri has already spent nine months in administrative detention without charge or trial this year, in retaliation for his tireless campaigning for an end to Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians. These latest plans are not only a shameless attempt to hinder Salah’s human rights work, they are also an expression of the Israeli authorities’ 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. Deportation carried to maintain a system of apartheid constitutes a crime against humanity. These crimes are all in the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, whose Prosecutor has opened an investigation into the situation in Palestine. We reiterate our call for the crime of apartheid to be included in that investigation; Israeli authorities must be held accountable.

This is an expression of Israeli authorities’ chilling long-term policy aim of reducing the number of Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Heba Morayef, Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa

“Over the past two decades, Salah Hammouri has faced many of the inhumane acts which Israeli authorities use to enforce and maintain their system of apartheid. He has been subjected to prolonged administrative detention on various occasions, as well as harassment, family separation, surveillance, and constant threats of residency revocation. This persecution must end now. Israeli authorities must release Salah Hammouri, restore his residency status in Jerusalem, and allow him to continue his human rights work without fear of reprisals.”

Background

Salah Hammouri was notified on 30 November that he will be deported to France on Sunday 4 December 2022 – the date his current administrative detention order expires. Salah has been detained without charge or trial since 7 March, under a three-month administrative detention order that has been repeatedly renewed.

The deportation of Salah Hammouri would set a dangerous precedent. It is based on an amendment to a law which authorizes the Israeli Ministry of the Interior to deport permanent residents (the legal status held by most Palestinian-Jerusalemites) if they are found to have “breached” allegiance to the state of Israel. This is at odds with international law: allegiance to the occupying power is not required from an occupied population.

Under Israeli law, Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are not Israeli citizens and are not residents of the West Bank. Instead, they are granted fragile “permanent residency status” which allows them to reside and work in the city, and which may be revoked on a number of discriminatory grounds.

 

Israel says it will deport Palestinian lawyer to France

Thu, December 1, 2022 

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel on Thursday announced it has stripped a Palestinian lawyer of his Jerusalem residency and plans to deport him to France, saying the man is an activist in a banned militant group.

The decision by Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked underscored the fragile status of Jerusalem’s Palestinians, who hold revocable Israeli residency rights but almost universally are not citizens. It also threatened to trigger a diplomatic spat with France, which has argued against the deportation.

Salah Hammouri has been held since March in administrative detention – an Israeli tool that allows authorities to hold suspects without charge for months at a time. Shaked said that after Hammouri’s detention expires this weekend, he would be deported to France as quickly as possible. Hammouri is a lifelong Jerusalem resident but holds French citizenship.

“We must fight terrorism with all the tools at our disposal,” she said. “It is not acceptable for terrorists like Hammouri to gain status in Israel.”

Israel says that Hammouri is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a group that is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States. 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.

He 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, said he has used his Jerusalem residency to continue “his hostile, serious and significant activity.” Last year, Shaked revoked his Jerusalem residency rights, claiming a “breach of allegiance,” and early this year he was placed in administrative detention based on secret evidence that he was not allowed to see.

Israel’s Supreme Court this week cleared the way for the deportation after rejecting an appeal from Israeli human rights group HaMoked against the order stripping him of his residency.

HaMoked attorney Dani Shenhar called the revocation of his residency a “drastic measure that violates a person's basic right to live in their homeland.”

“As a member of the indigenous population of Jerusalem, Hammouri owes no allegiance to the state of Israel,” Shenhar said. "The fact that this decision was made largely on the basis of secret evidence only exacerbates the injustice."

It was not immediately clear when Hammouri will be deported. French President Emmanuel Macron has previously raised concerns about the case with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid.

“France follows Salah Hammouri’s situation very closely and at the highest level,” said the French Foreign Ministry in a statement. He "must be able to have a normal life in Jerusalem, where he was born and where he lives, and his wife and children must be able to travel there to get back with him.”

The Associated Press