15 Oct 2019; MEMO: In a dawn raid yesterday, Israeli soldiers abducted the Governor of Jerusalem, Adnan Ghaith, and Fatah Secretary-General for the city, Shadi Mutwar, from their homes.
“The governor was arrested in a raid on his home in the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan,” the Palestinian Prisoners Society said in a statement.
Media sources said the soldiers assaulted Mutwar in front of his family before ransacking his home and violently searched Ghaith’s residence.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP that “two representatives were arrested by police and are being questioned”, but did not confirm their names or give any further detail.
Lawyer Mohammad Mahmoud, of the Palestinian Detainees’ Committee, said an Israeli court has refused to release the two officials, and added that they will be sent to court, likely today. They were accused of engaging in activity on behalf of the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the city, he explained.
Mahmoud added that the Israeli Prosecution is demanding holding them in dentention “for exercising sovereignty in Jerusalem.” PA activities are barred from Jerusalem by Israel, which took control over East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.
Both political officials have been repeatedly abducted and imprisoned by the army, as part of Israel’s ongoing violations against Palestinian officials, activists and institutions in occupied Jerusalem.
Israeli soldiers also detained the head of the Palestinian Preventative Security, Sa’id Atari, along with five young men from the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
According to Wafa news agency, the soldiers invaded the Al-Aqsa compound before seizing the six Palestinians.
