Israel yesterday released a West Bank leader of the global campaign to boycott the Jewish state, following his arrest last month by Israel’s internal security agency.
Mahmoud Nawajaa, co-ordinator of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in the occupied Palestinian territories, was arrested at his home in Ramallah on July 30.
Several rights groups, including Amnesty International, had campaigned for his release, including through rallies in Ramallah and Gaza this month.
“Nawajaa was released by an Israeli military court, after 19 days of illegal detention without charges,” the BDS movement said in a statement.
Israeli military tribunals exercise jurisdiction over Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
“Since his arrest on July 30, the Israeli internal security (agency) Shin Bet has failed to present any formal charges against him,” the BDS statement added.
A Shin Bet spokesperson said that Nawajaa had been “arrested and questioned on security matters... and released at the end of the investigation”.
The BDS movement calls for a wide-ranging embargo of Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians.
Israel sees BDS as a strategic threat and accuses it of anti-Semitism. Activists strongly deny the charge, comparing the embargo to the economic isolation that helped bring down apartheid in South Africa.
A law passed in 2017 allows Israel to ban foreigners with links to BDS. Last year, Israel expelled the country director of Human Rights Watch, Omar Shakir, after accusing him of supporting BDS, a claim he denied.
Israeli sources had previously said that Nawajaa’s arrest was not linked to his role with the BDS movement.
TROOPS INJURE
DEAF PALESTINIAN
Israeli border policemen yesterday also shot at the leg of a Palestinian in his 50s or 60s, who ignored calls to freeze at a key security crossing between Ramallah and Jerusalem, DPA reported.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the man had “walked in an area where only vehicles are permitted.” The guards called on him to stop, but when he continued to approach them “suspiciously,” they fired warning shots.
When he still did not stop, they shot him in the leg. The man turned out to be unarmed, with difficulties in hearing and communicating.
Further south on the West Bank, Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian who tried to hurl a Molotov cocktail at them near the holy site of Rachel’s tomb outside of Bethlehem. “A hit was identified,” a military statement said.
After a lull since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Palestinians this month have stepped up cross-border attacks from Gaza, setting ablaze agricultural fields in southern Israel with incendiary
balloons.
Relatives of Mahmoud Nawajaa, co-ordinator of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in the occupied Palestinian territories, receive him after he was released from prison, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, yesterday.
Relatives of Mahmoud Nawajaa, co-ordinator of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in the occupied Palestinian territories, receive him after he was released from prison, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, yesterday.
