Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar, who was arrested this morning
from her home near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, seen on 27 August
2014 holding an Israeli order banishing her to Jericho, which she
defied.
(Oren Ziv / ActiveStills)

Palestinian human rights groups and political parties are condemning
the arrest by Israeli occupation forces of a prominent leftist
politician.
Israeli occupation forces raided the home of Palestinian Legislative Council member Khalida Jarrar early on Thursday morning near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and took her to an “undisclosed location,” according to Palestinian prisoners rights group Addameer.

Her arrest brings to 16 the number of Palestinian lawmakers currently in Israeli detention.
Jarrar’s daughter Yaffa told Ma’an News Agency
that occupation forces surrounded the home, then demanded to see her
mother. Israeli soldiers searched the house, seized two computers and a
mobile phone and took Jarrar away.

Jarrar’s husband Ghassan told the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) that the occupation forces broke down the front gate of the building and searched the house for more than two hours.
Israeli occupation forces said they detained Jarrar, 52, a prominent member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,
“for being the leader of a ‘terrorist organization,’ [who] had
encouraged ‘terror activities’ over the last few weeks,” Ma’an News
Agency reported.

Israel considers most Palestinian political factions and all forms of armed resistance to occupation to be “terrorist.”

Resisting banishment

Last August, Israeli occupation forces issued Jarrar with an order banishing her to Jericho. She defied the order and has remained in her home in the town of al-Bireh.
Addameer, on whose board of directors Jarrar sits, condemned the
arrest as “an attack against Palestinian political leaders and
Palestinian civil society as a whole.”
It notes that Jarrar, who suffers from chronic health issues, has
been denied permission to travel abroad for necessary medical treatment
except for one occasion.

PCHR condemned Jarrar’s detention as part of Israel’s policy of
collective punishment of Palestinian civilians in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Several Palestinian political factions also added their condemnation.
Ma’an News Agency notes
that Jarrar’s detention “came just one day after Muna Qadan, a
political affiliate of Islamic Jihad, was sentenced to 70 months in
prison by Israeli authorities for alleged illegal political activity.”

Palestinian Authority complicity

While Israel carried out the arrest, Addameer points to the
Palestinian Authority’s direct complicity, because Jarrar’s home is in
so-called “Area A” – part of the one fifth of the occupied West Bank
ostensibly under full PA control.
Under the terms of the Oslo accords, Israeli occupation forces coordinate their entry into Area A with PA forces.

“Allowing Israeli occupying forces to enter Ramallah means that in
effect the so-called ‘security coordination’ between Palestinian
Authority security forces and Israeli occupying forces allowed for the
expulsion of an elected representative of the Palestinian people, an
elected representative who has continuously called for an end to such
‘coordination,’” Addameer said.
“Security coordination” is the policy of active collaboration between
Palestinian security forces and the Israeli occupation that PA de facto leader Mahmoud Abbas has termed “sacred.”