• Police took Salah Hamouri, 37, onto a flight to France early on Sunday morning.
• Authorities claimed he belonged to a terrorist group.
• His expulsion was criticised by Amnesty International.

A Palestinian-French human rights attorney was reportedly deported by Israel’s interior ministry after being accused of posing a threat to national security.

Police took Salah Hamouri, 37, onto a flight to France early on Sunday morning, according to the ministry.

He was a lifelong resident of Jerusalem who had his residency rights revoked after authorities claimed he belonged to a terrorist group.

Rights organisations have denounced the action, and Mr. Hamouri disputes the accusations.

The interior ministry, however, said that Mr. Hamouri had “organised, inspired, and planned to perpetrate terror actions” against “people and well-known Israelis” in a statement.

Ayelet Shaked, the interior minister for the departing Israeli administration, lauded the decision as a personnel victory.

She declared in a statement that “the terrorist Saleh Hamouri’s sentence has been finished and he has been deported from Israel.”

“This was a long and drawn-out process, and it is a remarkable accomplishment that, utilising the resources at my disposal to further the war against terrorism, I was able to bring about his expulsion shortly before the conclusion of my duties.”

The French citizenship of Mr. Hamouri comes from his mother. He had legal residency in Jerusalem, which the government might cancel.

He works for Addameer, a Palestinian legal aid and prisoners’ rights organisation that, along with five other Palestinian civil society organisations, was labelled a terrorist organisation by the Israeli defence ministry in October 2021.

The military said they were associated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an Israeli-designated terrorist organisation that is a militant Palestinian group.

Following his arrest in March, Mr. Hammouri was placed under administrative detention, which is a three-month period of incarceration without accusation or trial, by the Israeli military commander in the occupied West Bank.

Mr. Hammouri submitted a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron pleading for assistance after spending four months in custody. He was then moved to a maximum security prison in central Israel after being designated as “a prisoner of high risk.”

He started a hunger strike in late September to express his displeasure with his administrative imprisonment. After 19 days, during which time he supposedly spent alone in a cell, he ended it.

He was informed last month that he would be deported, but the removal was postponed while his attorneys disputed the allegations. His appeal was turned down by the Supreme Court earlier this month.

His expulsion was criticised by Amnesty International, which added that he was “paying a steep price for his efforts as a lawyer for Palestinians.”

The organisation said, “The expulsion from the occupied Palestinian areas is a grave violation of international law, a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and possibly a war crime.” Additionally, it might be considered a crime against humanity.

A Palestinian rights organisation called HaMoked also criticised the expulsion as “a blatant breach of fundamental rights” and “a dangerous precedent.”

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