Israel Matzav

IDF deporting two ISM 'activists'? UPDATE: Supreme Court orders them released

The IDF is deporting two members of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who were assisting the rioters along the 'security fence' and who were being shielded by the 'Palestinians.'(UPDATE: Or is it? See below).

The IDF explained that the two women, Arianda Jove Marti of Spain and Bridgette Chappell of Australia, have been involved in riots protesting the separation barrier.

The women, both of them in their 20s, are activists of the pro-Arab International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and were officially charged by the IDF with remaining illegally in Israel, where one of them entered on a temporary tourist visa and the other on a fake visa. The ISM admitted that the visas were not valid but charged that the women did not break any law.

An ISM activist said that about a dozen soldiers arrested the two women early Sunday morning as part of an intensive campaign to prevent a spread of violent demonstrations that have resulted in dozens of injuries to soldiers as well as Arab and foreign protestors, many of them anarchists.

Last month, Israel deported a Czech woman who also was arrested in Ramallah.

It's about time the IDF started cracking down on these people.

Too bad the Supreme Court ordered them released. Unbelievable. Here's more.

Palestinian authorities and the women's attorney called the entire operation illegal, arguing the military had no right to raid a city within an area designated by interim peace accords as being under Palestinian civil and security jurisdiction.

But the Supreme Court ordered Marti and Chappell released on other grounds, saying immigration officers - authorized only to operate inside Israel - had taken custody of the women from the military at a prison inside the West Bank.

"(The immigration officers) have no authority outside the legitimate borders of Israel," the women's lawyer, Omer Schatz, told reporters before the court ordered his clients freed on bail.

The two activists were banned by the court from returning to the West Bank but told they could file an appeal against deportation from Israel, which controls the territory's borders.

They two were ordered to pay NIS 3,000 bail apiece, instead of the NIS 25,000 originally requested, were told they could not return to the Palestinian territories, but that they could file an official appeal over their deportation.

During a hearing on Monday, state prosecutors said the two should not have been transferred to the Oz immigration unit, which has previously been instructed not to participate in the arrest of activists in the West Bank.

State Prosecutor Ilil Amir said, "A legal problem exists regarding the authority to enforce the laws of entry into Israel."

"At about 2:30 at night soldiers opened the door and came in. There were 15-20 soldiers who aimed their guns at us," Marti described on Sunday from a holding cell in Ramle prison. "They asked for our passports and then asked us to take our things and go with them. They cuffed us and drove us to Ofer Camp."

There they were handed over to the Oz immigration unit of the Defense Ministry.

They said Interior Ministry officials asked them to agree to be expelled immediately from the country.

"They told us that they are taking us to Holon and there we can decide, either we agree to immediate expulsion or that we will be jailed for six months. He told us that we had time until the trip to Holon to decide," Marti added.

The two say that at the Holon headquarters of the unit they were questioned, and that most of the questions dealt with the lack of visas.

They refused to sign documents that would see them willfully expelled.

What could go wrong?

By the way, the picture at the top does NOT included the women in question. You can find that picture's story here.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:44 PM