But the police did come for her. <\/p>\n
Abu Sneineh, 22, said she was told she was being arrested and asked to hand in her phone. \u201cWhen I asked why, (the police officer) started pushing me and snatched my phone out of my hand,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The officer checked Abu Sneineh\u2019s phone for\u00a0TikTok or Facebook\u00a0\u2013 she doesn\u2019t\u00a0have either\u00a0\u2014 then\u00a0checked her\u00a0Snapchat\u00a0account, the only social media she uses. <\/p>\n
\u201c[The officer] noticed that I hadn\u2019t\u00a0posted anything. Then she went to my WhatsApp\u2026 I had posted a verse from the Quran, and that turned out to be what they were after. They said I was inciting terrorism. I couldn\u2019t\u00a0believe it,\u201d Abu Sneineh said. <\/p>\n
The verse in question, Abu Sneineh said, was: \u201cGod is not unaware of what the oppressors do.\u201d <\/p>\n
Abu Sneineh is\u00a0one of\u00a0dozens\u00a0of Palestinian residents and citizens of Israel\u00a0to have been arrested in Israel for expressing solidarity with Gaza\u00a0and its civilian population, sharing Quran phrases or showing any support for the Palestinian people\u00a0since the latest war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas began\u00a0last month. <\/p>\n
Gaza has\u00a0been under intense bombardment by Israeli forces\u00a0after\u00a0Hamas\u00a0carried out gruesome terror attacks against Israel\u00a0on October 7, killing 1,400 people\u00a0and taking more than 240 hostages, according to Israeli officials. <\/p>\n
More than 9,000 people, including thousands of children, have been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza since then, according to figures released Friday by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, drawn from sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave. <\/p>\n
The huge death toll\u00a0from the Israel Defense Forces\u2019\u00a0(IDF) bombing\u00a0and the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza have\u00a0prompted global\u00a0criticism of Israel, with even some of its closest allies calling for a humanitarian \u201cpause\u201d\u00a0or ceasefire. <\/p>\n
But Palestinians expressing solidarity with Gaza are facing serious consequences in Israel. <\/p>\n
The\u00a0Israel Police said that as of October 25, it had arrested 110 people since the start of the war for allegedly inciting violence and terrorism, mostly on social media. Of these arrests,\u00a0only\u00a017 resulted\u00a0in\u00a0indictments. Most people\u00a0were released without further charges, usually after a few days. <\/p>\n
Baker said the low number\u00a0of indictments suggested\u00a0that people were being\u00a0arrested for making statements that are not illegal. <\/p>\n
\u2018Not talking about the law\u2019<\/strong> <\/p>\n The Israel Police says it is acting\u00a0under\u00a0Israel\u2019s Counter Terrorism Law. Article 24 of this legislation\u00a0states\u00a0that\u00a0anyone who does anything to \u201cempathize with a terror group\u201d whether that\u2019s\u00a0by \u201cpublishing praises, support or encouraging, waving a flag, showing or publishing a symbol\u201d can be arrested and jailed for up to\u00a0three years. <\/p>\n However,\u00a0Adalah,\u00a0a non-governmental organization (NGO)\u00a0that advocates for Arab rights in Israel said in\u00a0a statement\u00a0that these\u00a0arrests are arbitrary and target Palestinians only.\u00a0It said that many are\u00a0carried out with brutal force in the middle of the night, and without proper legal\u00a0justification. <\/p>\n \u201cThe criteria is not whether it\u2019s legal or not, the criteria is whether it makes people angry or whether it\u2019s something that is against the mainstream, we are not talking about the law. We are talking about atmosphere,\u201d Baker said, adding that discussing the context of the October 7\u00a0attacks is\u00a0\u201cforbidden.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cYou cannot ask what can drive people to commit such horrible crimes. Can you ask who failed here? Why has Hamas succeeded? No,\u201d Baker said,\u00a0pointing to numerous\u00a0articles written in Israeli media that pose the same questions. \u201cThey can do it. But if\u00a0you\u2019re\u00a0Palestinian, you cannot do this,\u201d the lawyer\u00a0said. <\/p>\n One of the people\u00a0Baker represents\u00a0is\u00a0Dalal Abu\u00a0Amneh, a\u00a0well-known Palestinian singer and neuroscientist\u00a0who\u00a0found herself arrested after turning to the police for help on October 16. <\/p>\n She was receiving a large number of serious threats over a post on her Facebook and Instagram pages that\u00a0included the Quranic phrase \u201cThere is No victor but God\u201d and a\u00a0Palestinian flag emoji. <\/p>\n The police said the statement, was inciting terrorism and violence. Her lawyer said the statement was posted on\u00a0Abu Amneh\u2019s Facebook and Instagram pages\u00a0by her PR team and has\u00a0since been deleted. Baker said the post, published late on October 7, after the Hamas terror attack and the first IDF strikes against Gaza, was meant as a \u201creaction to the war on both sides.\u201d <\/p>\n Abu Amneh has spent the past two weeks\u00a0holed up in her parent\u2019s house, even though her house arrest has\u00a0ended.\u00a0\u201cShe is very afraid, she is scared of going back to her house,\u201d Baker said. \u201cPeople have put up Israeli flags around her house and made threats against her and shared where she lives on social media.\u201d <\/p>\n \u2018Zero tolerance\u2019<\/strong> <\/p>\n He said that ever since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israeli authorities have\u00a0made a \u201cconcerted effort\u201d to silence\u00a0Palestinians in the West Bank by imprisoning them. <\/p>\n Boulos said that despite the odds being stacked against his clients in a\u00a0court system\u00a0\u201cnot built to establish justice for the Palestinians,\u201d\u00a0some prisoners were freed in the past. That, he said, is no longer an option. <\/p>\n The Israeli State Attorney\u2019s Office said in a statement that \u201cthere should be zero tolerance for those who publish \u2013\u00a0explicitly and even implicitly \u2013\u00a0expressions of support for the enemy and his criminal acts against the citizens of the country.\u201d <\/p>\n The State Attorney\u2019s\u00a0Office has also made it easier for the police to open investigations into alleged instances of these acts, according to the statement. <\/p>\n The\u00a0crackdown is\u00a0creating an atmosphere of fear among Palestinians. <\/p>\n \u201cIf I were to write about how airstrikes on Tel Aviv are bad, they probably wouldn\u2019t\u00a0mind. But if I said airstrikes on Gaza are also bad, they will arrest me for it,\u201d he\u00a0said. <\/p>\n Adli said he was feeling\u00a0ashamed and embarrassed for not being able to express support for Palestinians in Gaza or\u00a0denounce Israeli airstrikes. The risk of doing that was too high, he said. <\/p>\n But the consequences of expressing\u00a0sympathy with Gaza could soon become even more serious. <\/p>\n Under current Israeli law,\u00a0the Ministry of Interior has the authority to revoke the\u00a0citizenship or residency of\u00a0anyone who is convicted of taking part in \u201cterror activity,\u201d as defined by\u00a0the Counter Terrorism Law. <\/p>\n However, Israel\u2019s Minister of Justice Yariv Levin said last week that he and Minister of the Interior Moshe Arbel were looking into the possibility of widening the scope of the law\u00a0to include the authority to revoke the citizenship of\u00a0people who publicly support, incite\u00a0or praise terror. <\/p>\n At the same time, Israel\u2019s far-right minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has made it one of his priorities\u00a0to combat what he calls incitement of terrorism online.\u00a0He has established\u00a0a taskforce focused specifically on incitement on social media\u00a0and has led calls for a\u00a0stricter approach to the issue.\u00a0Ben-Gvir has been convicted in the past\u00a0for inciting anti-Arab\u00a0racism and supporting terrorism. <\/p>\n Baker, the lawyer, said that some of the arrests, and Ben-Gvir\u2019s rhetoric, were an extreme reaction to the brutal Hamas attack. <\/p>\n \u201cIsrael is going through a trauma, a terrible trauma. But the law did not change even if we are in a tragic situation. The criteria\u00a0of what is illegal\u00a0is the same criteria. The reaction is extreme,\u201d Baker said. <\/p>\n \u201cShe has been sick\u00a0every day since she came home, she hasn\u2019t been able to eat,\u201d her mother\u00a0added. <\/p>\n The family said that after Dua was arrested, the police searched the\u00a0house, turning it upside down. When Dua\u2019s 27-year-old\u00a0brother\u00a0Ibrahim got home, he too was arrested and remains in jail. <\/p>\n \u201cHe has done nothing wrong. They say he has incited and supported terrorism, but he hasn\u2019t\u00a0posted anything on social media. And even if he did, he would never incite violence or say something wrong,\u201d Fatina\u00a0said, explaining that her older son Aboud has been in jail for eight months for protesting around al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. <\/p>\n \u201cHe (Aboud) also did nothing wrong, but because he\u2019s in jail, Ibrahim would not risk getting into trouble,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n But the police did come for her. Abu Sneineh, 22, said she was told she was being arrested and asked to hand in her phone. \u201cWhen I asked why, (the police officer) started pushing me and snatched my phone out of my hand,\u201d she said. The officer checked Abu Sneineh\u2019s phone for\u00a0TikTok or Facebook\u00a0\u2013 she <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11182,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}