Jordan’s envoy to Israel returns to Amman amid spat over detainees

Jordan’s ambassador to Israel arrives in Amman, a Jordanian diplomatic source tells The Times of Israel.

The diplomatic source makes the remark less than a day after Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi announced that the Hashemite Kingdom had recalled Ghassan Majali for consultations to protest Israel’s ongoing detention of two of its nationals.

Israel detained Heba al-Labadi, 32, and Abdul Rahman Miri, 29, at the Allenby crossing in the Jordan Valley on August 20 and September 2, respectively. The Palestinian Authority Prisoners Affairs Commission has said that both of them are being held under administrative detention.

Administrative detention orders allow Israel to hold suspects in terrorism and national-security cases for months at a time without formal charges.

Earlier in October, Israel’s Shin Bet security service said that Labadi, who is of Palestinian descent, is being held “because of suspicion of her involvement in serious security violations,” without elaborating.

The Haaretz daily on Monday quoted Raslan Mahajna, Labadi’s lawyer, as saying that she is suspected of “meeting with persons identified” with the Hezbollah terror group in Beirut in trips in 2018 and 2019. According to the newspaper, Mahajna said that Labadi met once with an employee of the Hezbollah owned al-Nour radio station, while visiting her sister in the Lebanese capital.

— Adam Rasgon and AP