Prominent Palestinian activist arrested
Israeli police arrested a Palestinian protest leader in the contested Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of Jerusalem, a day after forcefully detaining a prominent Al Jazeera journalist.
Israeli police arrested a Palestinian protest leader in the contested Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of Jerusalem, a day after forcefully detaining a prominent Al Jazeera journalist covering the campaign by Jewish settlers to evict dozens of Palestinian families from the area.
The arrest on Sunday of Muna al-kurd, confirmed by phone by her father Nabil, was the latest move by Israeli police to quell several days of tension in one of the most sensitive neighbourhoods in Jerusalem.
It came as Givara Budeiri, a veteran correspondent for the Al Jazeera satellite channel who regularly covers the story, was released from hospital with a broken hand that her boss said she sustained on Saturday.
Nabil al-kurd said Israeli police early yesterday “stormed the house in large numbers and in a barbaric manner”, adding they wanted to arrest Ms Muna, 23, and her 22-year-old brother.
“I was sleeping and I found them in my bedroom,” Nabil al-kurd said in a telephone interview. While his son was not home, police searched the house and arrested Ms Muna, one of the most widely known activists.
Video posted on social media showed her being taken from the home in handcuffs.
“The reason for the arrest is that we say that we will not leave our homes, and they do not want anyone to express his opinion, they do not want anyone to tell the truth,” he said. “They want to silence us.”
Police later confirmed the arrest of a 23-year-old woman for allegedly participating in “public disturbances” in Sheikh Jarrah. She was released after questioning.
The weekend tensions began on Saturday as Ms Budeiri, wearing body armour marked “press”, covered a sit-in among activists.
Witnesses and the satellite channel said that after the protest was over, Israeli police asked her for press identification. She offered to call her driver to retrieve it, but officers surrounded her, pushed
her and handcuffed her before leading her to a border police vehicle.
She was held for four hours before she was taken to hospital with a broken hand, said Walid Omary, the Jerusalem bureau chief for Al Jazeera.
Ms Budeiri had been reporting regularly from Sheikh Jarrah, he said. As part of her release, she is banned from returning to the neighbourhood for 15 days.
In footage posted online, Ms Budeiri can be seen handcuffed and surrounded by border police. Clutching her notebook, she is heard shouting: “Don’t touch, enough, enough.”
Israeli police said she was detained after she was asked for identification, refused, and pushed a police officer.
But witnesses said Ms Budeiri, who holds an Israeli press card, was not allowed to return
to her car to get the document. Al Jazeera said her cameraman’s video camera was also heavily damaged by police.
Al Jazeera's acting director general, Mostefa Souag, condemned the police actions.
He said: "They are attacking the journalists in east Jerusalem because they don't want them to continue covering what's happening inside Sheikh Jarrah.”