ISRAEL PREVENTS EX-PRISONER FROM ENTERING WEST BANK

Jerusalem,  9 Jumadil Akhir 1436/ 29 March 2015 (MINA)- Israeli authorities delivered a military order on Friday denying a former Palestinian prisoner from Jerusalem entry to the West Bank for six months.

The former prisoner, Salah Hammouri, 29, told Ma’an that Israeli intelligence had summoned him to the Russian Compound police station in Jerusalem and given him a military order preventing him from entering the West Bank so as to maintain “the security and safety of citizens.”

The order, which had been signed by the Israeli Major-General Nitzan Alon in the West Bank, took effect on March 24, 2015 and will continue until September 24, 2015, Ma’an News Agency quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

Al-Hammouri was convicted for being a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and planning to assassinate Rabbi Ovadia Yosef.

He was released on December 18, 2011 as part of the the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal after having spent six years in Israeli jails, and was prevented from travelling and entering the West Bank for three months at that time as well.

Around 1,000 Palestinians were released from Israeli prisons in 2011 in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was captured by Hamas in 2006.

Israeli forces maintain severe restrictions on Palestinians’ freedom of movement in the occupied Palestinian Territories through a complex combination of checkpoints, roads forbidden to Palestinians but open exclusively to Jewish settlers, and various other physical obstructions.

Dissidents against the Israeli occupation are often specifically denied freedom of movement, to the extent that Israeli authorities sometimes forcibly exile political opponents from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip. (T/P010/R04)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)