Military court gives Spanish-Palestinian woman 13 months in prison for raising PFLP funds

An Israeli military court sentences a Spanish-Palestinian to 13 months in prison after convicting her of illegally funding a Palestinian terrorist organization.

Juana Rishmawi’s lawyer, Avigdor Feldman, tells AFP that the military court had confirmed the sentence requested by prosecutors as part of plea agreement last week and ordered her to pay a 50,000 shekel ($16,000) fine.

The Israel Defense Forces has said Rishmawi confessed to her role as a fund raiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a description Feldman rejected.

Rishmawi had been working for the Union of Health Work Committees, which Israel banned from the West Bank in 2020, saying it was a civilian arm of the PFLP, a Marxist terrorist group blamed for previous attacks on Israelis.

“The defendant Rishmawi was not involved in passing money to the PFLP. She was working with the health organization, she brought the money to the health organization, she had no idea this money was brought to the PFLP,” Feldman tells reporters.

Rishmawi was first detained in April. Her daughter Maria Rishmawi tells reporters today’s sentencing is “important because the uncertainty of the last months led to a lot of anguish and it was very hard to bear.”

Rishmawi’s sentencing comes weeks after Israel outlawed six prominent Palestinian civil society groups, alleging they were also fronts for the PFLP.