NABLUS – Israel detained Wednesday Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) member Hosni Bourini from his Asira al-Shamalia home, northwest of Nablus in the northern West Bank, according to Palestinian security sources, bringing the total number of Palestinian lawmakers in Israeli custody to 13.
Bourini was one of five Palestinians the Israeli occupation authorities had detained during a raid and search campaign in Asira al-Shamalia.
With the detention of Bourini, Israel is currently holding 13 Palestinian lawmakers, most of them members of the Hamas-backed Reform and Change List. Nine of the detained lawmakers are held in administrative detention without charge or trial.
Two of the PLC members are serving long prison terms for their resistance of the Israeli occupation and they include Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who is in custody since April 2002 and is serving five life terms, and Ahmad Sadaat, head of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), who was arrested in June 2006 and sentenced to 30 years in prison for leading an organization responsible for the killing of an Israeli lawmaker in revenge for the Israeli assassination of the former head of the PFLP, Abu Ali Mustafa, in Ramallah in 2002.
Another PFLP leader and legislator since 2006, Khalida Jarrar, was detained on July 2 and served with a 6-month administrative detention order. Jarrar had earlier spent one year in prison and released in June 2016.
Eight over lawmakers from the Reform and Change List are serving time in administrative detention for various periods of time and they included Hasan Yousef, Mohammad Natsheh, Ahmad Attoun, Azzam Salhab, Mohammad Bader, Mohammad al-Tal, Ibrahim Dahbour and Ahmad Mubarak.
Omar Abdul Razeq, also from the Reform and Change List was recently arrested and has not been served with any sentence yet, and so is Bourini.
“The continued targeting of Palestinian legislative council members must be viewed in a broader context of systematic attempts by the Israeli occupation to suppress Palestinian political processes, which attempts to hold Israel accountable for the crimes committed against Palestinians,” said the rights group Addameer – Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association.
“Evidence of this repression can be seen in the increasing number of Palestinian legislative council members currently imprisoned by the Israeli occupation.”
(WAFA)
