GUE/NGL has strongly condemned the illegal detention of the Palestinian lawmaker, Khalida Jarrar, along with Khitam Saafin – president of the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees – and at least nine others by Israeli forces during pre-dawn raids in the occupied West Bank on Sunday. 

GUE/NGL considers such unlawful acts by the Israeli occupation forces as an attack against the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and on Palestinian civil society.

Jarrar – who was released from Israeli prison just over a year ago – is the head of the PLC’s Prisoners' Commission and is one of 13 Palestinian parliamentarians currently incarcerated by Israel. 

Last year, she recounted in harrowing details the maltreatment of Palestinian women in Israeli prisons including torture, abuse, solitary confinement – and often without trial.

Meanwhile Saafin, the General Coordinator of the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees, has in the past spoken internationally about women’s struggles by linking them with those in Palestine for national and social liberation.

Since 1967, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been detained under Israeli military orders in the occupied Palestinian territories – with an estimated 6,500 political prisoners currently in jails.

GUE/NGL hereby calls on the international community to condemn Israel for behaving with such impunity against elected members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. We urge foreign governments to work towards the detainees’ release, and we demand Israel to immediately halt unlawful detentions and the violations of prisoners’ rights.