Salah Hamouri

Salah Hamouri (born 25 April 1985) is a French-Palestinian lawyer and field researcher for the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. His wife – who is French – has been barred since January 2016 from entering Israel or the Israeli-occupied West Bank to visit him.
Hamouri was arrested in 2005 and accused of plotting to murder Ovadia Yosef, founder of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party and former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel. After over 3 years' detention without trial, on the advice of his lawyer, while protesting his innocence he admitted culpability in a plea bargain in order to avoid a 14-year term of imprisonment, and was sentenced by a military tribunal to serve a 7 in jail. A number of committees have formed to protest against his treatment and affirm his innocence. Hamouri was released in exchange for the return of the Israeli POW Gilad Shalit in December 2011.
He has been repeatedly placed under a regime of administrative detention – which Amnesty International described as 'a major human rights violation' It has been claimed that he has been held in detention for a crime of opinion.
Early life and education
Salah Hamouri, is a native Jerusalemite, resident in the one neighbourhood, Dahyat el-Barid, of Al-Ram enclosed within Israel's Jerusalem municipal boundaries. He was born 25 April 1985 in Jerusalem, one of three children—a brother, Amir, and a sister, Caroline—to a French mother, Denise-Annick Hamouri from Bourg-en-Bresse, who teaches French at a private Catholic school in West Jerusalem, and a Palestinian father, Hassan Hamouri, who manages a restaurant in East Jerusalem. He is trilingual in Arabic, Hebrew and French, and has dual nationality, Palestinian and French, with French citizenship and an Israeli identity card.
An alumnus of the Catholic private school of Frères de Lasalle de Jérusalem in East Jerusalem, after his Baccalaureate he enrolled in sociology at Bethlehem University, and subsequently studied law and qualified as a lawyer.
Career and personal life
On 29 May 2014, he married Elsa Lefort, an employee of the Institut français du Proche-Orient, resident in East Jerusalem and daughter of the French politician, long time French Communist Party deputy and secretary to Georges Marchais Jean-Claude Lefort.
On 5 January 2016, his wife, then six months pregnant, was arrested and detained for two days after arriving at Ben-Gurion Airport and thereafter expelled from Israel, despite having a consular visa valid until October of that year. Previous attempts to renew her visa had met with repeated refusals on the grounds that her husband was free as part of a prisoners' exchange deal, which automatically left him blacklisted by every branch of the Israeli government. She was forbidden to reenter either Israel or the West Bank under military administration, for a period of 10 years, on the grounds that she constituted a threat to the security of Israel. When he is held in detention no correspondence is allowed between Hamouri and his French wife.
Both his wife and his French father-in-law have been since subject to harassment and threats after a website published their addresses. By refusing to allow his wife to finish her pregnancy in Jerusalem, the Israeli authorities automatically deprived their child of the right to a residency permit in that city, a decision that, it has been argued, also reflects a battle for demographic ascendency, as reflected in the policy of the Judaization of Jerusalem.
Early Arrests and accusations
In the early months of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, Hamouri was shot in the thigh with live ammunition during a confrontation between Israeli troops and demonstrators at Al-Ram in northern Jerusalem. The bullet remains lodged there to this day.
He was first arrested and placed under administrative detention when he was 16 years old, in 2001. He was caught handing out leaflets protesting Israeli colonization, and was sentenced to five months in jail for 'anti-Israeli propaganda' or/and for being a member of a student union (syndicat des étudiants). On his release he resumed his studies at the lyceum, and graduated in June 2003.
At 19, he was again arrested by the Shin Bet in 2004, and from February of that year served another five-month term in prison, without trial, on suspicion of being a member of George Habash's Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine(PFLP), a Palestinian Marxist group regarded internationally as a terrorist organization. Hamouri has denied being a member of that organization, though he defends the movement as an integral member of the PLO and sympathises with its aims.
Alleged involvement in a plot against Ovadia Yosef
In September 2005 Moussa Darwish (22) from the East Jerusalem village of Isawiya, who had joined the PFLP in 2000, confessed that he had planned to assassinate Ovadia Yosef, the head of the ultra-orthodox Shas party. Darwish, after entering a plea bargain agreement, was subsequently sentenced to a 12-year prison term in mid-December of that year. Darwish had been employed by a grocery near Ovadia's house and had made home deliveries to his residence in Har Nof, something that afforded him the opportunity to case the property and familiarize himself with its security arrangements. He developed a plan, and suggested to another PFLP member that they kill Ovadia by shooting him while driving by on a motorbike. The two accomplices were believed to have visited Givat Shaul in December 2004 to prepare their attempt, but the plan was foiled the following month when a scheduled consignment of ammunition from a third party at the Shuafat checkpoint was blocked by the presence of IDF soldiers which made the proposed transfer too risky. In delivering their judgment the court stated that Darwish's plot, if executed, would have jeopardized the security of Israel by instigating revenge attacks against Arabs in Jerusalem.
The foiling of such a plot had been cleared for publication several months earlier in April 2005, a month after Hamouri's own arrest. It was reported then that, in addition to Darwish, Hamouri, then 19, and Moatsam (var. Muatztaf) Sheikh (25) from 'Anata, were involved. Security sources were reported as asserting that Hamouri together with a friend, having purchased arms, had driven past Ovadia's home in January 2005 in order to case it; that PFLP inmates incarcerated in Jericho on suspicion of being involved in the murder of Rehavam Ze'evi several years earlier had mulled the idea of selecting Ovadia as a target and this had filtered through to Hamouri during his detention. Other sources state that Darwish came up with the idea.
Hamouri was arrested on 13 March 2005 at the Qalqilya checkpoint while he was driving home to Ramallah. He was ordered to get out of his vehicle by soldiers, blindfolded and handcuffed, and arrested without explanation before being sent for detention in Jerusalem's Moscovia Prison where he was held incommunicado under administrative detention for three months. Two hours later Israeli agents ransacked his parents' home in East Jerusalem, seizing his computer's hard disk, and even dismantling the toilet in search of evidence. His parents only learned of the charges laid against him from the newspapers a month later, where it was claimed he had driven past Ovadia's home in January after having purchased arms.
Hamouri was kept in administrative detention for three years and eventually shifted to Gilboa prison near the Syrian frontier, where he learnt Hebrew in order to pursue courses given to prisoners there. No more than two books – one of which had to be of a religious nature – were allowed to detainees.
Hamouri chose as his defense lawyer Leah Tsemel. On 16 February 2008, during a visit to Israel by Bernard Kouchner Hamouri's mother Denise managed to
tell him she thought three years detention was more than enough. Kouchner took this as a request for a speedy trial, and two days later, the military prosecutor contacted Tsemel and offered a bargain: a seven-year term of imprisonment, rather than fourteen, if he admitted to the facts.
The charges were that
That he was a member of a youth cell of the PFLP
That he intended to participate in a plot (against Ovadia).
The evidence for the latter was based on the fact that he was seen by an informer passing in front of Ovadia's home.
The material for an indictment in the hands of the prosecution was thin. There was no physical evidence, weapons, intercepted letters, plan or phone taps. The only proof they could introduce consisted of testimonies, later retracted, given by other Palestinians, and Salah's own admission that he had indeed driven past Ovadia's home with a friend, one of the accused. Otherwise, Hamouri maintained he was innocent of the charges laid against him, and dismisses the idea that he and his friends were involved in a 'plot'.
On Tsemel's advice, while protesting his innocence, Hamouri entered into a plea bargaining arrangement before a military tribunal, – a compromise 95% of Palestinian prisoners adopt – admitting culpability in exchange for a 7-year prison sentence in order to avoid a longer term of imprisonment. Israeli authorities had also given him the option of either leaving Israel for 10 years or face 7 years in prison, Hamouri preferred incarceration to the prospect of exile.
2011 Release: the Shalit-Hamouri prisoner exchange
Hamouri was eventually released on 18 December 2011 as part of a second tranche in a prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hamas involving another French citizen, the soldier Gilad Shalit who had been captured by Hamas and used as a bargaining chip by Hamas for the release of Palestinian prisoners. A disparity has been noted in the two cases: while Shalit was detained, French diplomacy was highly active in endeavours to secure the release of the French-Israeli, whereas a parallel request that a French Palestinian's case be raised as a political issue was ignored. Requests by Hamouri's mother, a Frenchwoman with a son in detention, to be received by Nicolas Sarkozy at the Élysée were rebuffed. Sarkozy had requested Israel to release Hamouri during his visit to the country in June 2008, and the following year in a letter to the Prime Minister on 30 July 2009, asked for clemency and a reduction of his sentence by a third in recognition of his good behaviour, as did Bernard Kouchner.
With the appointment of Alain Juppé as head of Foreign Affairs at the Quai d'Orsay, there was a slight change in the climate. Juppé wrote to Marie-France Beaufils, a senator, on 31 March 2011 that:
I regret that the Israeli authorities did not make a decision to remit the sentence, especially as the confession made at the hearing was not corroborated by any evidence. I appreciate his family's grief as he is at an age for dedicating himself to study. I also understand that the person concerned has chosen not to ask for a pardon. It's an attitude worthy of respect.'
Hamouri's release was conditioned on Ovadia's consent, which the latter gave reportedly in order to secure Shalit's release. Binjamin Netanyahu had regularly turned down official French requests for clemency on the grounds that he had to defer to the views of Ovadia. In 2011 Sarkozy therefore repeated the request directly in a letter to Ovadia, who, after consulting with Zvi Ammar in Marseilles, replied that he would not oppose Harmouri's release. On regaining his freedom, when asked about his imprisonment, Hamouri replied he had no regrets about the choices he had made. With regard to Ovadia, he stated that the rabbi was and would remain a symbol of racism and fanaticism in Israel: Ovadia had likened Palestinians to reptiles in 2000, suggested that Arabs be wiped out with missiles, and hoped that God would smite them with a plague. His remarks were construed in Israeli media as confirming a desire by Hamouri that Ovadia be killed, a suggestion he rebuffed as a lie churned out by propaganda machinery.
His wife later commented that in Hamouri's case, French diplomacy had been based on 'discretion': 'they have been very discreet. The mere fact of being imprisoned in Israel turns one into a suspect, despite everything.'
2011-2016
Hamouri changed his vocational interests from sociology to law, and enrolled as a law student at Al Quds University near Abu Dis in the West Bank. His access to the university suffered from several bureaucratic hassles regarding his freedom of movement. In April 2015, the military commander of the West Bank Nitzan Alon banned him from entering the area for a period of six months, from 24 March until 24 September 2015, meaning that he would not be able to sit his exam in July to qualify as a lawyer. He subsequently enrolled in graduate school for a master's degree in human rights. The ban was renewed twice hindering his practical training to be a lawyer. The restriction, whose rationale was unexplained, lasted continuously for one and a half years, destroying his social life, obstructing his participation in social events with family such as weddings and graduation ceremonies; and denied him access to his workplace in Ramallah, or visiting his parents in Al-Ram.
Re-arrest
On 20 August 2017, having completed his legal studies, Hamouri was admitted to the Palestinian bar as a qualified lawyer. He lacked only certification to practice, which was scheduled on taking an oath in September. Three days later, he was re-arrested during a night raid on his home in Kafr Aqab on 23 August, and placed under detention for five days. His family only learned of his arrest after his neighbour phoned them. A hearing took place on 27 August, and, when the prosecution failed to list a charge sheet for indictment, the judge ordered his release conditionally: he was to be confined for 10 days in Reineh, banned from Jerusalem for 3 months, prohibited from travel for the same period, and required to post bail for $3,000. His father immediately undertook to post the bail, but the bureaucratic procedure took time. Before it was completed, on the 29 August the Israeli Minister for Defense Avigdor Lieberman issued an order once more placing him under the regime of administrative detention for six months in Ktzi'ot Prison in the Negev where his mother was permitted to visit him for 45 minutes once a month. The detention blocked his completion of his master's degree in law.
On 5 September, a date set aside to confirm the order, the Jerusalem Magistrate Court, rather than confirm the order, adopted a different decision, determining that Hamouri was to serve the three months in prison remaining over from his 2005 conviction. This ruling was challenged by the prosecution and eventually, the Israeli District Court ruled in its favour, reinstating the 6 month detention order. In November, Israel declared seven members of a French delegation of 20 politicians intending to visit Israel to examine the state of Palestinians in detention, as personae non gratae. Among the seven denied entry were Pierre Laurent, Clémentine Autain, Patrick Le Hyaric and Pascal Durand. The other 13 were given entry permits conditional on their not meeting Marwan Barghouti and Hamouri. On 28 December 2017 Israeli authorities informed him he would be moved to the high-security Megiddo prison for engaging in 'incitement': he had given an interview with a French journalist and had discussed the techniques used by the IPS in dealing with people under conditions of administrative detention .
The order was renewed for another four months on the expiry of its term in February 2018. Amnesty International's Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa demanded that Israel either release him or charge him immediately, since in the view of that organization the detention regime under which he is held places him in an 'indefinite limbo' on secret evidence he or his lawyers have no access to.
Hamouri was due to be released on the expiry of his second term of detention without trial on 30 June. On 1 July, however, the regime of administrative detention was prolonged by another three months. 109 French public figures, including the socialist Senator Monique Cerisier-ben Guiga offered collectively to take his place in jail, as hostages, to permit his release. After serving 13 consecutive months in prison without trial, he was finally released on 30 September 2018. The allegations against him remained unspecified but the terms of his release stated he was prohibited from demonstrations, protests or celebrating the occasion for one month, and he was required to post a bond of $825 to that effect. While in Europe he made frequent public appearances to plead for an improvement in the conditions of incarceration of some 6,000 Palestinian prisoners.
2020
In 2018 a law was passed in the Knesset empowering the Israeli government to revoke permanent resident status in cases where it deemed a person had committed what it calls a 'breach of trust against the state'. In one calculation the use of breach of trust to expel Palestinian residents predates this bill, with at least 15 Palestinians being stripped of their residency rights on those grounds since 2006. In February 2019, the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs issued a report in which Hamouri is one of three prominent Palestinian human rights figures – the other two being Shawan Jabarin, director-general of the Al-Haq organization, and Raja Sourani, director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights – listed as 'terrorists in suits'.
Hamouri was arrested on Tuesday 30 June 2020 near a Sheikh Jarrah Health Centre while taking a COVID-19 test, preliminary to leaving on a flight to Paris the following Saturday, 4 July. He was then taken to the Moscovia Detention Centre and detained there for 8 days for 'further investigations', until he secured release by paying a further $US290 to the $585 in bail money he had already posted, with an interdiction order not to speak for three months (90 days) to a number of people, though he was not provided with a list of their names.
On 3 September, he was informed by letter by Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, now the head of Ovadia's Shas party, that his residency permit would be revoked. He was given a month to appeal the decision. The reason given was that it was believed that Hamouri continued to be an active member of the PFLP and as such was classified as an internal enemy as part of Israel's ongoing war against terrorism. The French government registered an official protest, requesting that his expulsion be postponed and that he be allowed to rejoin his family.
On 7 September, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) expressed alarm at what they called the 'judicial harassment' of Hamouri, and argued that the Israeli law (Entry into Israel Law of 1952, article 11) used to revoke Hamouri's residential status violates International Humanitarian Law. Secondly they argued that the law is also in breach of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, according to which
Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.
In the opinion of Munir Nusseibeh of Al-Quds university, the planned measure also violates article 8 of the statute of the International Criminal Court, and the implementation of the expulsion would make Aryeh Deri liable to prosecution for a war crime.
2022
In December 2022, Hamouri was deported from Israel to France, with the Israeli Interior Ministry citing security concerns. The French government condemned the move, claiming that the move violated his right to live in his native Jerusalem. Critics of the move stated that Israel was committing a war crime and the expulsion was ethnic cleansing.
Hamouri's deportation was condemned by Amnesty International. and the European Parliament.
Notes
References
Sources
External links
Website of the French committee to support Salah Hamouri
1985 births
Living people
Palestinian lawyers
Palestinian people of French descent
People from Jerusalem
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine members