Israel Detains Rand Halawani and Natalie Abu Diyeh From Palestinian Women’s National Team

Israeli authorities detained two members of the Palestinian women’s national football team, with the Palestinian Football Association saying 20-year-old Rand Halawani and 21-year-old Natalie Abu Diyeh were taken from occupied Palestine on Tuesday.

“Photo courtesy of WAFA news agency”

Ahram Online

The Palestinian Football Association said the arrests were “part of a well-documented pattern of systematic targeting of Palestinian athletes, which continues without accountability,” and it said Halawani’s detention was extended by an Israeli court until Friday.

Ahram Online

Al Jazeera reported that Israeli authorities extended Halawani’s detention after she was summoned for questioning in Jerusalem, and it said Israel’s military also arrested Natalie Abu Diyeh, a student at Birzeit University, along with three other young Palestinian women in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday.

Her Football Hub said Halawani was abducted and illegally detained by “occupying Israeli authorities” in two separate incidents, and it said Birzeit University denounced the arrests as part of Israel’s “systemic policies targeting Palestinian education and students’ right to continue their academic journey.”

Israel’s military said the four women were suspected of “promoting terrorist activities and additional terrorist-related activities,” according to the accounts cited by Al Jazeera.

Sportstar reported that Israeli police told AFP that Halawani’s arrest came after an incident in which objects were thrown from a rooftop at demonstrators in Jerusalem earlier this week, and it quoted police saying they suspected “the individuals documented throwing objects at demonstrators.”

Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera said the Jerusalem governorate reported an Israeli court extended Halawani’s detention until Friday, while the Palestinian Football Association denounced the prolonged detention as “not an isolated incident, it is part of a well-documented pattern of systematic targeting of Palestinian athletes, which continues without accountability”.

Bishop Imad Haddad of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land called for Natalie Abu Diyeh’s release and said, “We are deeply shocked and horrified by this news, as well as by the news that her family does not yet know where she has been taken”.

The Prisoners Club, cited by Al Jazeera, said 89 Palestinian women were currently in Israeli jails, including three minors and three pregnant women, and it said the Palestinian Authority-affiliated Prisoners Club announced in late May that more than 9,400 Palestinians were in Israeli jails.

“In an escalating context of targeting Palestinian universities and their students, Israeli occupation forces arrested four Palestinian women students and graduates at Birzeit University during a wide raid campaign carried out in the predawn hours of yesterday, Tuesday, in various areas of the Ramallah Governorate”

Al-Jazeera Net

Arab News reported that the number of Palestinian women detained or serving sentences in Israeli prisons rose to 89 after the detention of four female West Bank students, and it said the majority were held in Damon Prison near the coastal Israeli city of Haifa.

Arab News also said the rights organization’s count included two women suffering from cancer, three minors and three pregnant women, and it said the 9,400 Palestinian prisoners faced “severe violations including assaults, medical negligence, starvation, solitary confinement, humiliating searches and overcrowding.”

Anadolu Ajansı added that the Palestinian Prisoner Society said Israeli forces detained four university students in the occupied West Bank, bringing the number of Palestinian women held in Israeli custody to 89, and it said the group reported female detainees include three minors, three pregnant women, 19 administrative detainees and two women suffering from cancer.