UN calls Israel’s expulsion of Palestinian human rights lawyer ‘war crime’
New York (QNN)- Israel’s expulsion of French-Palestinian human rights lawyer Salah Hammouri amounts to a “war crime”, the UN human rights office said Monday.
“Deporting a protected person from occupied territory is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, constituting a war crime,” UN human rights spokesman Jeremy Laurence said in a statement.
In condemning his expulsion, Laurence said, “We are deeply concerned by the chilling message this sends to those working on human rights” in occupied east Jerusalem.
On Sunday morning, the Israeli occupation Interior Ministry said that the French-Palestinian lawyer was deported “to France following Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked’s decision to withdraw his residency status.”
The lawyer arrived on Sunday morning in Paris, where he was welcomed by his wife Elsa, politicians, representatives of rights groups, and supporters at the French capital’s Charles de Gaulle airport.
On his arrival, his supporters unfurled a banner saying “Welcome Salah” and some carried Palestinian flags. Around a dozen police officers were also at the airport.
Activists wait at Paris International Airport to receive Palestinian-French human rights defender Salah Hammouri who was expelled by the Israeli occupation authorities this morning to France. pic.twitter.com/E2QzbLTl9z
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) December 18, 2022
Breaking: Palestinian-French human rights defender Salah Hammouri arrives in Paris after he was forcibly expelled by the Israeli occupation authorities to France this early morning. pic.twitter.com/YkV3VIcjBC
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) December 18, 2022
Activists chant for Palestine as they welcome Palestinian-French lawyer Salah Hammouri at Paris Airport upon his forcible deportation by the Israeli occupation authorities to France. pic.twitter.com/VsrowQdcoN
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) December 18, 2022
Hammouri, 37, was arrested on March 7 at his home in the Kufr Aqab neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem and since then has been in administrative detention.
In October 2021, Israeli occupation authorities revoked his East Jerusalem residency, denying him the right to live in his hometown, which ‘Israel’ captured in 1967 from Jordan.
In November, Israeli authorities said Hammouri would be forcibly deported to France because of his alleged “breach of allegiance to the State of Israel” and “based on secret evidence he cannot challenge.”
The expulsion, however, was delayed as his lawyers contested the case.
Hammouri is a human rights lawyer known for advocating for the rights of detainees, including torture survivors.
He is a researcher with the Palestinian prisoners’ rights NGO, Addameer. For his political activism, he has spent a total of eight years in Israeli prisons over different periods.
In 2005, ‘Israel’ sentenced him to seven years for an alleged Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) plot to assassinate Ovadia Yosef, a right-wing rabbi – an accusation he denied.
He was released in December 2011 as part of an exchange of Palestinian prisoners with Gaza.
Hammouri, who is married to a French national and has two children, has been unable to speak to his wife or see her since his arrest. In September, he staged a hunger strike to protest his conditions.
The #JusticeforSalah campaign said in September that Hammouri, who was held in the maximum security prison Hadarim, was moved into solitary confinement in a 2×2 square meter cell with no windows and a primitive toilet.
A statement from the Hammouri campaign called the deportation a “war crime” and said it constituted a breach of international law.
“Wherever a Palestinian goes, he takes with him these principles and the cause of his people: his homeland carried with him to wherever he ends up,” Hammouri said in a statement on the day of his forced deportation.
🚨BREAKING🚨
Salah’s words to his people on the day of his forced deportation and the war crime against him and against the people of Jerusalem.#justiceforsalah #liberezsalah pic.twitter.com/Y9AbsF1CfF— JusticeforSalah (@JusticeforSalah) December 18, 2022
In October, UN independent experts condemned Israel’s measures against Hammouri as “sadistic”.
“We are concerned by Israel’s pervasive misuse of administrative and criminal law proceedings and use of secret information against Palestinians, including human rights defenders such as Mr. Hammouri,” they said.
“The detention practices Mr. Hammouri is being subjected to are not just unlawful: they are sadistic.” Experts said Hammouri was at risk of expulsion due to his alleged involvement in “terrorist activities” and “breach of allegiance” to ‘Israel’.
