Israel to detain female Palestinian lawmaker for 6 months

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Israeli military has placed a female Palestinian legislator under detention for six months without trial, a lawyer for the lawmaker said Monday.

Khalida Jarrar, a senior political leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a left-wing Palestinian militant group, is being held for alleged activities in a hostile organisation, lawyer Mahmoud Hassan said.

Jarrar, 52, is being held under Israeli administrative detention, which allows Israel to hold detainees for up to six months at a time without charges, the lawyer said. The detention and any extensions are approved by a judge, and evidence can be kept from defence lawyers.

Israel says administrative detentions prevent attacks by fighters. Rights groups say international humanitarian law permits administrative detention in exceptional cases, but that Israel is out of bounds with its large-scale use of the method.

The Israeli military arrested Jarrar last week for disobeying an Israeli order barring her from the West Bank city of Ramallah. The military said her arrest was due to "substantial concerns about the safety and security of the region”.

The military had no immediate comment Monday on the six-month detention order.

A Palestinian prisoners' advocate, Qadoura Fares, said the arrest is an Israeli punitive political act. He said Israel is holding 16 Palestinian lawmakers in jails, most of them administrative detainees who are members of the Islamist group Hamas.