Israel arrests Palestinian lawmaker
PLFP member Khalida Jarrar detained after violating injunction restricting her movement in the West Bank
Israel arrested a Palestinian lawmaker from a left-wing terrorist group on Thursday for disobeying an order restricting her movement in the West Bank.
The IDF said it arrested Khalida Jarrar, a senior political leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, early Thursday in the West Bank city of Ramallah due to “substantial concerns about the safety and security of the region.”
The PFLP organization has been behind a number of attacks on Israeli civilians over a period of some 40 years.
As recently as November of last year, it took responsibility for a terror attack in which five people were shot and hacked to death with meat cleavers in a bloody assault on a Jerusalem synagogue.
Last year, the military confined Jarrar’s movement to the city of Jericho and its surroundings.
The army said the restraining order was based on her “incitement and involvement in terror.”
Her husband, Ghassan Jarrar, said she was arrested in their Ramallah home.
She had long flaunted the Israeli ban.
The military said it was questioning her but has not yet decided whether to press charges.
Soldiers confiscated two computers and a mobile phone from the premises, according to Palestinian media reports.
The Palestine Liberation Organization denounced the move and called Jarrar’s detention “illegal” on social media.
Jarrar was heavily involved in cementing the Palestinian Authority’s bid to join the International Criminal Court bid, a PLO spokesperson said.
