Israeli forces question Palestinian woman for 12 hours before arrest

Israeli occupation forces have interrogated a Palestinian woman from the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem for 12 hours before arresting her for “security reasons”, local media reported on Friday.

Twenty year-old Shifa Abu-Freejeh’s father said that the Israelis called him on Thursday morning and asked for his daughter to go to Etzion Interrogation Centre at midday. His daughter, wife, son and nephew duly went along as requested. While Shifa was being interrogated, though, her relatives were told to wait outside. After 12 hours, the Israeli security officers told her relatives that Shifa had to remain there for “security reasons”. Although no further details have yet been provided to her family, one of the officers told them that the young woman had been “wanted by the Israeli military for two years.”

However, according to her father, Shifa was sent an “attendance notice” one week before the phone call. In response she went to the same interrogation centre with her brother Mohamed, 23. At that time, the Israeli security forces did not do anything to her, but took her brother’s ID document.

Palestinian rights group Addameer said that the Israeli occupation authorities have increased the number of Palestinian women arrested over the past two years. Statistics show that Israel arrested 106 women in 2016, a 70 per cent increase over 2013.