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Police said to raid leading bookstore in East Jerusalem, arrest owner, seize books

10 February 2025, 1:35 am 39 Edit

Israel Police officers have reportedly raided two famous bookstores in East Jerusalem that focus on Palestinian identity and the Israeli-Arab conflict, confiscating many books and arresting the owner of the chain for the night.

According to Haaretz, the cops came to the Educational Bookshop’s two stores under a court-granted search warrant, arresting owner Mahmoud Muna and his nephew, Ahmad Muna, who will spend the night at the police headquarters at the Russian Compound.

Haaretz quotes the brother of one of the owners as claiming the officers used Google translate to determine which books — most of which are in Arabic — to confiscate.

“They took any book they didn’t like,” he reportedly says. “They even saw a Haaretz newspaper with images of hostages, asked what it was and said it was incitement. They took any book with a Palestinian flag.”

The report says the owners are formally suspected of disrupting public order rather than of incitement, since the latter requires approval by prosecutors.

Last week, police shuttered a bookstore in Jerusalem’s Old City for selling books containing “inciting content” revolving around Yahya Sinwar and Hassan Nasrallah, among others. They detained the shop owner, a resident of the Old City in his 40s, brought him in for questioning and ordered his business closed for 30 days.

Charlie Summers contributed to this report.

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