British minister on Ahed Tamimi arrest: Israel soldiers ‘shouldn’t be there’

The British government has responded to the arrest of Palestinian teen activist Ahed Tamimi saying that the Israeli occupation forces should not have been in Nabi Saleh in the first place.

In oral questions yesterday, Labour MP Julie Elliott asked Alistair Burt, minister of state for the Middle East at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, whether he shared her “outrage” over the “continued detention of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi”.

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Elliott noted that Tamimi is being detained in an Israeli prison inside the Green Line, in violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring prisoners outside of the occupied territory.

In response, Burt noted that he knows “both the Tamimi family and Nabi Saleh” personally, describing the incident as a “very unhappy” one.

The truth is that the soldiers should not be there and the young woman should not have needed to do what she did

he added.

Burt confirmed that the British government has made representations to the Israeli authorities about Tamimi’s case.