Palestine will deport a lawyer to France from Jerusalem

• The deportation of Salah Hammouri has been dubbed a shameless attempt by Israel.
• It is to silence anyone who might be speaking for the Palestinian cause.
• Hammouri, a French citizen, has been employed by Addameer, a Palestinian rights organization.

After the revocation of his residency in Jerusalem, Israeli Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked has ordered the deportation of incarcerated Palestinian-French lawyer Salah Hammouri from his house in occupied East Jerusalem to France.

Hammouri, a French citizen, has been employed by the East Jerusalem-based Addameer, a Palestinian rights organization. The deportation, which is scheduled to happen on Sunday, has been dubbed a “shameless attempt by Israel to silence anyone who might be speaking for the Palestinian cause” by the rights organization Amnesty International.

According to Israeli law, the interior minister has the authority to cancel a Palestinian’s right to stay in occupied East Jerusalem.

The treatment of Hammouri is being viewed by many people in this area as a test case, according to Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, who is reporting from the occupied East Jerusalem. He added that “human rights advocates and attorneys claim it’s an intentional effort by the Israeli government to drive out Palestinians.”

The termination of Hammouri’s residency has been referred to as a “draconian move that violates a person’s fundamental right to dwell in their homeland” by Dani Shenhar of HaMoked, an Israeli rights organization that is defending Hammouri in court.

Shenhar declared that Hammouri owed no allegiance to the state of Israel because he is a member of Jerusalem’s indigenous community. “The injustice is only made worse by the fact that this decision was largely based on secret evidence.”

Under Israel’s contentious administrative detention policy, which permits suspects to be kept without charge or trial for six months at a period, Hammouri has been incarcerated for nine months. It is perpetually renewable. Over 700 Palestinians have been imprisoned in Israel thanks to the law.

Israel had previously imprisoned the 37-year-old many times.

He is viewed as a terrorist by Israel. The harshest punishment was a seven-year term for allegedly attempting an assassination. He was freed as part of a prisoner exchange between the Israeli authorities and Hamas, according to McBride for Al Jazeera.

“Although Hammouri is a French citizen, he has never resided there for an extended period of time. He has lived in Jerusalem for his entire 37-year life. He may be deported at any time if his residence was withdrawn, the man added.

“The wife of Hammouri has already been expelled. She and their kids are currently residing in France.

The subject has previously been brought up by French President Emmanuel Macron with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid.

The French government has encouraged the Israeli authorities to free Hammouri so that he might reside in Jerusalem with his family.

The French foreign ministry issued a statement saying, “France attentively and at the highest level follows Salah Hammouri’s condition.” His wife and kids must be allowed to travel to Jerusalem, where he was born and currently resides, in order for him to be able to lead a regular life there.

Hammouri’s wife, Elsa Lefort, told Al Jazeera that her husband is being targeted by Israel as a human rights advocate.

She remarked, speaking from Paris, “It’s dreadful news and I cannot imagine how Salah must be grieved.” “He is Jerusalem’s son. He was born there, where his life also began. He is a component of the city. Salah has terrible news.

Salah has been detained by the Israelis for more than 20 years and has served more than nine years in prison.

Lefort continued by claiming that Hammouri had been the target of travel restrictions and that she had been denied entry to Palestine and sent back to France.

Last year, Hammouri was one of six human rights advocates whose mobile devices had spyware from the Israeli firm NSO Group installed on them, according to independent security researchers.

Who installed the spyware on the phones was unknown. Israel has maintained that there is no link between the categorization of Adameer and five other Palestinian rights organizations as “terrorist” organizations and any purported use of NSO malware. The “terrorist” label has received little public support from Israel, which Palestinian organizations claim is done to silence them and cut off their financing sources.

Israel claims that because Hammouri is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, he is a militant who belongs to “a proscribed group” (PFLP).

According to Amnesty International, his deportation would be a war crime.

According to Heba Morayef, regional director for Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa region, “These latest plans are not only an egregious attempt to obstruct Salah’s human rights work, but they are also an expression of the Israeli authorities’ chilling long-term policy aim of reducing the number of Palestinians in East Jerusalem.”

Deportation from the Occupied Palestinian Territories without authorization is against the law and is a war crime. Deportation committed in support of an apartheid system is a crime against humanity. All of these crimes are under the purview of the International Criminal Court, whose prosecutor has launched an inquiry into the Palestinian predicament.

Although Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents are eligible to apply for Israeli citizenship, few do so because they don’t want to appear to support the occupation.

However, those who do apply must go through a protracted and cumbersome process.

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