Detention extended for Palestinian women’s soccer player arrested for ‘throwing objects’
Police say East Jerusalem resident Rand Halawani, 20, nabbed alongside unnamed 18-year-old; ex-national player also arrested Tuesday along with 3 other young women in West Bank
Israeli authorities on Wednesday extended the detention of a player on the Palestinian women’s national soccer team after she was arrested the day before for allegedly “throwing objects” at people in Jerusalem, police told AFP.
Twenty-year-old Rand Halawani was arrested Tuesday night, police said.
“Officers arrested a male and female suspect, aged 18 and 20, residents of East Jerusalem, who are suspected of being the individuals documented throwing objects at demonstrators,” police said in a statement.
Police did not elaborate on the allegations.
According to the Palestinian Authority, an Israeli court extended Halawani’s detention until Friday.
The Palestinian Football Association denounced the prolonged detention, saying the arrest was “not an isolated incident, it is part of a well-documented pattern of systematic targeting of Palestinian athletes, which continues without accountability.”
#Israel extends detention of #Palestinian footballer Rand Halawani https://t.co/XxUcgo9y9u pic.twitter.com/eNvfFlSLgi
— Filistin Bülteni (@filistinbulten_) June 3, 2026
Israel’s military also arrested former national soccer player Natalie Abu Diyeh, a student at Birzeit University, as well as three other young Palestinian women in the West Bank on Tuesday.
The military said in a statement that the four women were suspected of “promoting terrorist activities and additional terrorist-related activities.”
Birzeit University denounced the arrests as part of Israel’s “systematic policies targeting Palestinian education and students’ right to continue their academic journey.”
This morning, the Israeli army detained Natali Abu Dayyah, a Palestinian Christian student at Birzeit University and a former player for the Palestine women’s national football team.https://t.co/QiOAbofNdn pic.twitter.com/Ya0CtwVopd
— Ihab Hassan (@IhabHassane) June 2, 2026
Bishop Imad Haddad of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, to which Abu Diyeh belonged, called for her release.
“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,” Haddad said in a statement on Tuesday.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, the main association for prisoners’ rights in Israel and the Palestinian territories, 89 Palestinian women are currently in Israeli jails, including three minors and three pregnant women.
The Palestinian Authority-affiliated Prisoners Club announced in late May that more than 9,400 Palestinians were in Israeli jails, a figure that includes Israeli Arabs.