Salah al-Hamouri is a Palestinian-French youth from Occupied Jerusalem who once was free to choose between spending the most youthful years of his life in prison or living as a French citizen in Paris. The story started after he was arrested by the Israeli occupation forces.
Hamouri began to be widely known when former French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to release him as part of hundreds others of Palestinian prisoners who were set free in exchange for the release of the captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit who also holds a French nationality in the Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner swap deal.
Following his release the 32-year-old ex-prisoner was repeatedly subjected to further persecution. On Wednesday the Israeli police raided his house in Kafr ‘Aqab in Occupied Jerusalem and re-arrested him and the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court extended his detention until next Sunday.
In 2005 Hamouri was arrested and sentenced to 9 years on charges of planning to assassinate rabbi Ovadia Yosef and being a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. This was the second sentence he received in his life as he had previously served a two-year sentence in Israeli jails.
Six years later Hamouri was released in the Wafa al-Ahrar (Shalit) prisoner exchange deal held between Hamas Movement and Israel.
He joined law school after his release and was able to obtain his first degree. Later he decided to continue his academic study in pursuit of a higher degree at al-Quds University-Abu Dis. Three days before his detention Hamour passed the professional practice exam set by the Palestinian Bar Association.
Hamouri’s wife and son are denied access to the Palestinian territories by the Israeli occupation authorities under false security pretexts while Hamouri himself has been long prevented from entering the West Bank based on a constantly renewed order.
Alaa Abu Diab Hamouri’s friend said “They offered Salah a 10-year deportation to France instead of serving his sentence but he refused to receive special treatment because of his French nationality.”
In a previous TV interview the Palestinian prisoner said that hunger strikes are prisoners’ last choice through which they can defend their rights and achievements.
Hamouri was exposed to various forms of physical and psychological torture in Israeli jails not to mention the repeated threats to arrest his family members who were summoned more than once to the Israeli interrogation centers in an attempt to pressure him into giving confessions on charges he did not commit.
On the charges leveled against him for planning to kill rabbi Ovadia Yosef Shas party chief Hamouri said earlier in an interview with Radio France Internationale that these lies are part of Israeli systematic propaganda.
