JERUSALEM: Israel said on Sunday it had deported 14 activists, who were detained while visiting the occupied West Bank for solidarity missions with Palestinians, who are facing violence from Israeli settlers.
The activists had come from the US, Canada, Italy and Germany with hopes of protecting Palestinians during their annual olive harvest, which has been hit by a surge of attacks by Israeli settlers. Israeli authorities arrested the activists near Ramallah on Friday, after an altercation with settlers, according to the Human Rights Defenders Fund.
‘Fourteen foreigners who were staying in Israel on tourist visas were deported after being detained by security forces,’ Israeli authorities said. They were deported for ‘having violated legal provisions’ of their visas and ‘disrupting public order’, it said.
Israeli police said that three Palestinians were also arrested. Sharona Weiss, the head of international advocacy at the Human Rights Defenders Fund, said the activists had been accompanying Palestinian farmers on their land ‘when settlers arrived and began attacking them’.
Meanwhile, Israeli authorities on Sunday released without charge an ArabIsraeli journalist who had been detained for five days over an interview of Azmi Bishara, a former lawmaker and founder of the Arab, hard-left Balad party, he conducted in Qatar, a rights group said.
Brought before a judge, Abed Abu Shehadeh was accused of having ‘contacted a foreign agent’.
-AFP