Pressured into exile, Salah Hammouri longs to return to his homeland. A month after Israel deported the Palestinian human rights lawyer from his jail cell to France, Hammouri says his “uprooting” is a part of Israel’s punitive insurance policies in opposition to Palestinians.
Hamouri has joined 1000’s of different Palestinians who’ve been deported for his or her activism in opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. Rights teams say the deportations and detentions are in opposition to worldwide regulation, and Amnesty Worldwide France referred to as it “a part of the crime of apartheid”.
Earlier than his deportation, Hammouri had spent greater than eight years in Israeli prisons. His first arrest occurred when he was barely 16 years outdated through the Second Intifada in 2001.
His newest stint in jail started in March when he was detained with out cost. It adopted the revocation of his residency in Jerusalem, town the place he was born and raised, and culminated in his deportation on December 18 to France, the place he’s a citizen.
A month later, Hammouri informed Al Jazeera that having his residency revoked was onerous to take each on a psychological and bodily stage.
“It felt like somebody was ripping your coronary heart out,” he stated from Paris, including that he had been threatened with dropping his residency for a few years.
Hammouri was focused for his activism and what Israel says is his membership to the leftist Well-liked Entrance for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) political celebration, His case has highlighted the delicate place of Palestinian Jerusalemites, who’ve rescindable residency rights and don’t maintain Israeli citizenship.
In 2005, he was sentenced to seven years in jail for an alleged PFLP plot to assassinate a right-wing rabbi, which Hammouri denied. After spending six years and 9 months behind bars, he was ultimately freed in a 2011 prisoner swap between Hamas and Israel. It noticed greater than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners launched in change for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who Hamas captured within the Gaza Strip in 2006.
Hammouri, whose mom is French, stated Israel had wished to deport him for 15 years as an alternative of sentencing him to jail.
“I refused and made the tough alternative of going to jail as an alternative,” he stated.
Discriminatory residency rights
In line with worldwide regulation, deportation by an occupying energy constitutes a breach of the Geneva Conventions and is taken into account one of the vital severe warfare crimes.
However Israeli threats of deportation for Palestinian prisoners is customary apply. In 2013, for instance, the Israeli authorities tried to drive starvation striker Samer el-Issawi to simply accept being deported to a UN member state in return for him ending his strike.
In line with the Israeli rights group B’tselem, such deportations are a direct continuation of Israel’s basic coverage in occupied East Jerusalem since 1967, whose purpose is to create a demographic and geographic actuality underneath which Israel’s sovereignty within the metropolis can’t be challenged.
“This coverage blatantly discriminates between Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem and Israeli residents,” the rights group stated. “Israeli residents can depart the nation for so long as they like and at all times have the correct to return.”
Beneath Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right authorities, discussions about withdrawing residencies and stripping away citizenship from Palestinians residing in Jerusalem and Israel have been floated, particularly for prisoners who’ve carried out assaults in opposition to Jewish Israelis.
Palestinians who’ve residency in Jerusalem can’t vote in Israeli elections and dwell underneath the specter of dropping their standing. Israel does that in 3 ways: First, Palestinians from Jerusalem who dwell outdoors town for seven years or get hold of residency or citizenship out of the country can have their residencies revoked. A second approach is that if Palestinians can’t “show” their centre of life is in Jerusalem. Lastly, Palestinian Jerusalemites can lose their residency if they’re accused of breaching “allegiance” to Israel, which is unlawful underneath worldwide regulation.
Alternatively, Israeli settlers residing in Jewish-only settlements in occupied East Jerusalem take pleasure in full citizenship rights and will not be subjected to those guidelines.
In line with Human Rights Watch, Israel has revoked the residency standing of a minimum of 14,701 Palestinians in East Jerusalem from 1967 to 2020. But when the dependent kids of those that had their residencies revoked are counted, the quantity is far larger – at 86,000.
“It’s clear that working within the area of human rights in Palestine is an accusation in opposition to you since you’re exposing the crimes of the occupation,” stated Hammouri, who misplaced his residency in October 2021. “However all of this won’t deter me from persevering with my work.”
The lawyer labored with the prisoner rights group Addameer, which Israel has banned as a part of its crackdown on Palestinian civil society teams. In 2014, he married Frenchwoman Elsa Lefort, however simply two years later, they have been pressured into what Hammouri stated was a long-distance relationship after Israel banned his spouse from the nation.
After his newest arrest, Hammouri was held for 9 months underneath indefinite administrative detention, that means that no prices have been introduced in opposition to him and no trial was held. He was interrogated at al-Maskobiya interrogation centre close to Jerusalem’s Previous Metropolis earlier than spending time in Ofer and Haderim prisons. When his detention was up for renewal in December, Israel opted to deport him to France, and then-interior minister Ayelet Shaked declared “justice was served” and referred to Hammouri as a “terrorist”.
On the time, the French international ministry condemned the deportation. In an announcement, the ministry stated it has “taken full motion, together with on the highest stage of the state, to make sure that Mr Salah Hammouri’s rights are revered, that he advantages from all authorized treatments and that he can lead a traditional life in Jerusalem, the place he was born, resides and needs to dwell”.
However Hammouri criticised France and stated he acquired no assist from the French authorities.
“I haven’t acquired a single phone name from French authorities or any official assist from them about my case,” he stated. “The French authorities has a accountability to me as a citizen and didn’t do its responsibility to defend me and battle my deportation. As a substitute, the federal government deliberately appeared away and allowed the Israeli occupation to deport me.”
‘Son of Jerusalem’
The lawyer was one in all six Palestinian human rights activists whose telephones have been hacked utilizing Israeli Pegasus spy ware in 2021, which he described as a part of longstanding harassment undertaken by Israel.
“Even after violating my privateness, Israel nonetheless couldn’t cost me with something,” he stated. “Spying on my telephone solely speaks to their ethical chapter, and these techniques are used in opposition to those that converse up in opposition to the occupation and defend our rights as Palestinians.”
Referring to himself as a “son of Jerusalem”, the lawyer described his emotional connection to town and reminisced in regards to the faculty he went to as a boy.
“My recollections embrace each intricate element in regards to the metropolis,” he stated. “The alleys and neighbourhoods within the Previous Metropolis, ka’ak [sesame bread], the excursions across the metropolis … and the historical past and ongoing story of Jerusalem’s wrestle in opposition to Israeli occupation.”
Hammouri criticised the worldwide neighborhood’s lack of response to the continuing Israeli occupation, saying its silence and therapy of Israel as above the regulation will solely embolden the state into persevering with what he stated are violations of worldwide regulation and crimes in opposition to humanity.
“The 12 months 2022 was disastrous for Palestinians when it comes to the excessive variety of martyrs killed by Israel, the arrest of human rights defenders, and the concentrating on and killing of journalists akin to Shireen Abu Akleh,” he stated.
“This is the reason we as a individuals should come collectively as a united drive and heal our interior divisions and conflicts,” he added.
There have been extra arrests, raids and Palestinians killed within the first weeks of this 12 months, and Hammouri predicted that the state of affairs will worsen underneath Netanyahu and his new authorities.
Hammouri stated he’ll use each authorized software at his disposal to strain France into returning him to his nation.
“I’m nonetheless processing my deportation,” he stated. “However I’ve promised myself to make my return to Jerusalem my life’s work.”
