Israel places ’48 Palestinian activist in indefinite detention

Renowned Palestinian activist Raja Eghbaria has been placed under administrative detention for a period of six months, following an order from Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz.

The decision came hours before Eghbaria was due to appear in Haifa’s Hadera Magistrates Court on Tuesday, one week after he was detained from his home by Israeli authorities.

The decision was a major blow for Eghbaria, as lawyers expected that Tuesday’s court hearing would lead to his release, as an indictment was not filed against him.

The 73-year-old was arrested in his hometown of Umm al-Fahm, within Palestine’s 1948 borders, last Wednesday after Israeli police, intelligence agents and Border Police guards raided his family home, the Palestinian news agency Wafa said.

The activist was then placed at the Kishon Detention Centre, also known as al-Jalameh Person.

The Haifa court had already extending his detention by a week following his arrest last Wednesday, before Katz imposed administrative detention on him.

In Israel, administrative detention is used to indefinitely detain Palestinians without charge or trial for renewable periods of six months, but can be renewed indefinitely. Detainees are not informed of what crimes they are accused of, nor are they shown any evidence used against them.

His lawyer Badr Eghbaria has requested that the hearing is postponed until Tuesday, in a bid to prepare his defence file, he told Arab48.

Eghbaria is among the most prominent members of the Abnaa al-Balad (Children of the Land) movement, which campaigns for the rights and self-determination of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

The movement, founded in 1969, also campaigns for the right of return for Palestinian refugees, the end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. During its early years, it ended participation in Israel’s Knesset as a way to resist Israel’s restriction on Palestinian life within the 1948 borders.

Abnaa al-Balad’s politburo said Eghbaria’s detention was part of Israel’s continued targeting, repression and violence against Palestinians, regardless of where they live.

The organisation said that they hold Israel “fully responsible” for Eghbaria’s life, as the activist suffers from serious health conditions, including respiratory issues.

News of Eghbaria’s detention prompted demonstrations from prominent Palestinian activists in Haifa, who demanded his release as well as a halt to the repression of Palestinian activists in Israel.

Protesters held banners which read: “Free Raja Eghbaria,” “No to administrative detention,” and “Administrative detention is illegal,” according to videos shared on social media.

Youssef Ibrahim, a member of Abnaa al-Balad, said that the protest “expresses our rejection of administrative detentions inside Israel and the repression practiced there, especially since administrative detention is prohibited under Israeli law but is carried out against Arab citizens”.

“In light of the significant increase in arrests, including administrative ones, it is our duty as a society to intensify protests and popular rallies against these repressive policies and other forms of targeting,” he added.

His lawyer added: “The conditions of his detention are very poor. We raised this point in court, especially since he is approximately 74 years old and suffers from several illnesses. Therefore, we asked the judge to speak with the Prison Service to consider his health.”

Who is the popular Palestinian activist?

Born in 1952 in Umm al-Fahm to a farming and land-owning family, Eghbaria’s father was forced to make a living as a construction worker after the family’s land was seized by Israeli authorities.

Eghbaria spent years organising Palestinian students in Israel while at university and beyond, before becoming the first Palestinian citizen of Israel to be held in administrative detention back in 1987 for a period of four months.

The Palestinian has been detained by Israeli on a number of occasions over the decades due to his activism, since the 1970s, and has been a constant subject of surveillance and Israel’s wider targeting of Palestinian dissidents.

One of his first “offenses” was being accused of receiving instructions from George Habash, the founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) to start an “intifada in Israel”, despite no evidence being presented.

He founded Abnaa al-Balad alongside one of his housemates at university, who had met with members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

He is also a former member of the High Follow-Up Committee for Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, an extra-parliamentary organisation which represents Palestinians living in Israel at national level.

Eghbaria was previously arrested and detained under an anti-terrorism law back in 2018, following a social media post on Facebook in September of that year, over “online incitement to violence and support of a terror organisation”.

The posts in question were made over a year before his arrest, and his lawyers blamed the false Hebrew translation of the posts’ Arabic-language content.

He was then released from detention in October, but placed under house arrest after the court ruled that the delay in his detention over the Facebook post meant he did not “pose any threat”.

A former teacher, Eghrabia was the owner of two Arabic-language newspapers, Al-Raya and Al-Midan, which were both shut down by Israeli authorities in the late 1980s. Both publications lasted around one and half years each.

Israel’s placing of Eghbaria under administrative detention has sparked concerns over Israel’s crackdown on Palestinians within the 1948 borders, in parallel with the war in Gaza and military operations in the West Bank.

Former prisoner and activist Amir Makhoul told Arab48: “After attempts to achieve a decisive victory in Gaza and the West Bank, it appears that we will be next in line inside Israel. […] It’s clear that through his arrest, they want to send a message that they won’t spare anyone if they want.”