Israel renews detention of pro-Hamas Palestinian scientist
Army says it has evidence Imad Barghouthi, who is being held without charge, ‘poses a significant security threat’
Dov Lieber is a former Times of Israel Arab affairs correspondent.
Israel’s military has renewed the detention without charge of a renowned Palestinian astrophysicist, asserting he poses a “significant” security threat.
Imad Barghouthi, a professor at Jerusalem’s Al-Quds University who once worked on NASA-funded projects in the United States, was arrested in late April by Israeli security forces at a checkpoint near the village of Nabi Saleh, west of Ramallah in the West Bank.
“Intelligence showed that [Barghouthi] poses a significant security threat, and an order was issued that he be held in administrative detention,” the IDF spokesperson said Wednesday.
The statement continued: “Administrative detention is carried out in accordance with both international and domestic law, and is used as a means of last resort. Accordingly, his detention and evidence gathered against him are being reviewed periodically by the Military Court.”
Under administrative detention, Israel can hold suspects for renewable periods without formally charging them, or publicly releasing incriminating evidence.
The head lawyer of the Palestinian Prisoners Association, Jawad Bolous, said that Bargouthi was detained for Facebook posts that were considered incitement, according to the Palestinian Ma’an news agency. That contention was not confirmed by the Israeli military.
Boulos was quoted as saying the court had reduced the detention time from three to two months.
Academics worldwide, the report said, have signed a petition protesting the detention of the astrophysicist, which was submitted during a hearing on Tuesday.
Barghouthi earned his doctorate at Utah State University, and worked in Jordan and Saudi Arabia before moving to al-Quds University in 2000. He was previously detained by the Israeli Border Police while trying to cross into Jordan in December 2014 on unknown charges and set free the following month.
His 2014 detention was protested by international academic groups, including the French Association of Academics for the Respect of International Law in Palestine, the British Committee for the Universities of Palestine, and the US-based Committee of Concerned Scientists, as a breach of freedom of speech and right to travel.
Bargouhti told the US-based Nature Journal that his first detention was over his opposition to the Israeli occupation, and for wearing the green scarf and hat of the Hamas terror group in his Facebook profile. He denied he was a member of the organization.
YouTube videos of Barghouti speaking at Hamas rallies show he was not just a critic of Israeli policy in the West Bank, but was also a vocal supporter of Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and their terror activities, including the firing of rockets at Israeli cities.
In a video published August 11, 2014, in the midst of Israel’s 50-day war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Barghouti can be seen speaking at a Hamas rally in downtown Ramallah calling on West Bank Palestinians to “take up arms to defend their homes.”
In a speech two months later at his university, Barghouti praised the actions of the Qassam Brigades and called on listeners to devote themselves to the “resistance” and to “liberating Al-Aqsa and the holy places.”
The number of Palestinians in administrative detention reached 627 at the end of February, according to official figures by the Israel Prison Service that are regularly published by the Israeli rights group B’Tselem. Critics say Israel’s large-scale use of the practice amounts to a violation of rules of due process.
Agencies contributed to this report
