Middle East Monitor / January 13, 2023
Israeli Occupation authorities, this morning, raided the home of Adnan Ghaith, the Palestinian Governor of the Occupied city of Jerusalem, while renewing the ban on him entering the Occupied city for another six months, reported WAFA news agency.
Ghaith told WAFA in a telephone call that he was informed of the ban extension by the Israeli soldiers who raided his home in the town of Silwan in East Jerusalem.
He said this decision is one of four that gets extended every four or six months, which also includes preventing him from meeting with PA officials and imposing house arrest.
Israel claims that his activities in the city undermine its authority. However, in none of the cases did the Occupation present sufficient evidence to justify Ghaith’s continued detention.
According to the Governor’s aide, Marouf al-Rifai, the Israeli Occupation authorities have been targeting Ghaith since 2000, when he was placed under house arrest for more than two years. This was followed by an eighteen-month prison sentence.
Al-Rifai added that the Israeli court’s decisions are politically motivated. “These decisions have been taken by the Israeli Occupation government and implemented through its biased judiciary with the aim of imposing its alleged sovereignty over Jerusalem and targeting the national and historical identity of the city and its people.”
Ghaith has been detained by Israel 35 times since he assumed his duties as Jerusalem Governor in August 2018.
