France on Sunday condemned Israel’s deportation of Franco-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri, charged with terrorism-related offenses and detained without charge since March.
Israel said Hamouri was still active in a terror group years after he was released from prison in 2011 for conspiring to assassinate a prominent rabbi. He has denied all allegations against him.
“We today condemn the Israeli authorities’ illegal decision to expel Salah Hamouri to France,” France’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
France’s Foreign Ministry said Paris was “fully mobilized, including at the highest level of state, to ensure that Salah Hamouri’s rights are respected, that he benefits from every possible support and that he has a normal life in Jerusalem, where he was.” born, lives and wants to live.”
“France has also taken several steps to communicate in the clearest way to the Israeli authorities its opposition to this expulsion of a Palestinian resident from East Jerusalem, an occupied territory under the Fourth Geneva Convention,” the statement said.
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Israel captured East Jerusalem, home of the city’s most important religious sites, in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed the area in a move that is internationally unrecognized. It regards the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a hoped-for state.
French President Emmanuel Macron has previously raised concerns about Hamouri’s case with Prime Minister Yair Lapid.
Supporters wait for Salah Hamouri in Paris after he was deported from Israel on December 18, 2022 (Daphné BENOIT / AFP)
Hamouri, who has French citizenship, has been held under administrative detention since March – an Israeli tool that allows authorities to hold suspects for months without charge and without allowing them to see the evidence against them.
Hamouri, who has lived all his life in Jerusalem, was held on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities due to his alleged affiliation with the terrorist group Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), but has not been charged or convicted in the most recent trials against him.
The Palestinian lawyer arrived in Paris on Sunday morning, where he was greeted by his wife Elsa, politicians, representatives of rights groups and supporters at the French capital’s Charles de Gaulle Airport.
Upon his arrival, his supporters unfurled a banner that read “Welcome Salah,” and some carried Palestinian flags. About a dozen police officers were also at the airport.
Salah Hamouri arrives in Paris after his deportation from Israel on December 18, 2022 (Daphné BENOIT / AFP)
“It is a happy day for a reunited family, but it is a sad day for the Palestinian people,” said Jean-Claude Samouiller, Amnesty International’s France director.
He described the expulsion as a “crime of apartheid”.
Hamouri works for the Palestinian human rights organization Addameer, which Israel, along with several other NGOs, classified as a terrorist organization in October 2021. Addameer – along with the UN, several European nations and a number of Israeli human rights groups – have all strongly opposed the designation.
Hamouri previously spent seven years in prison after being convicted in 2005 of conspiring to murder Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a former chief rabbi and spiritual leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas Party.
Hamouri was released in a 2011 prisoner swap with the Gaza-based Hamas terror group for the release of captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
Israel has since said Hamouri used his stay in Jerusalem to “continue his hostile, serious and significant activity.”
Israel says Hamouri is a member of the PFLP, which Israel, the United States and the European Union have labeled a terrorist organization, although there has been no public evidence supporting the allegations against the lawyer.
Home Secretary Ayelet Shaked decided to revoke Hamouri’s residency rights in October 2021.
Shaked announced his deportation on Sunday morning, hailing it as a “great achievement” at the end of her tenure as Home Secretary.
“This has been a long and drawn out process and it is a tremendous achievement that I was able to bring about his deportation near the end of my duties using the resources at my disposal to advance the fight against terrorism,” Shaked said in an explanation . “I hope that the new government will continue on this path and deport terrorists from Israel.”
Home Secretary Ayelet Shaked at a conference hosted by the Srugim news website in Jerusalem on October 30, 2022. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Expected new interior minister Aryeh Deri, leader of the Shas party, said the deportation was “the end of a long but fair trial”.
Outgoing Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman criticized the support Hamouri had received from France in a Twitter post.
“It is unthinkable that the terrorist Salah Hamouri, convicted, released, recidivist and deported, will be welcomed in France as a hero. And to add insult to injury, the French foreign ministry censured Israel,” Liberman said.
“This is not how terrorism is fought, but terrorism and terrorists are encouraged, both in Israel and in France,” he added.
Israeli human rights group HaMoked condemned the decision, saying that “the deportation of a Palestinian from his homeland for betrayal of the State of Israel sets a dangerous precedent and a gross violation of fundamental rights.”
In September 2019, Hamoked appealed the 2018 law that allows the state to strip Palestinians from East Jerusalem of permanent resident status on the basis of “breach of allegiance to the State of Israel.”
The decision to revoke Hamouri’s stay underscored the fragile status of Jerusalem’s Palestinians, who have Israeli residency rights but, for the most part, are not citizens.
The residency permits allow them freedom of movement, employability and access to Israeli social services, but they are barred from voting in national elections. The right of residence can be revoked when a Palestinian is found to be living out of town for an extended period of time or in certain security cases.
Palestinians can apply for citizenship. But few do so because they don’t want to be seen as accepting what they see as a profession. Those who apply face a lengthy and bureaucratic process.
Last year, Hamouri was among six human rights activists whose mobile phones were infected with spyware from the Israeli company NSO Group by independent security researchers.
It was not known who installed the spyware on the phones. Israel says there is no connection between Addameer’s terror designation and the five other Palestinian rights groups and the alleged use of NSO spyware. Israel has publicly presented little evidence to support the designation as terrorism, which Palestinian groups say is intended to muzzle them and dry up their sources of funding.
Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.