Foreign activist deported after Israeli night raid

Ma'an
Israel deported a Czech national on Tuesday, 24 hours after she was seized by soldiers in a late-night raid in the West Bank city of Ramallah's city center.

Eva Nováková, 28, the International Solidarity Movement's media coordinator, was forced onto a plane early Tuesday to Prague from Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport, where she was taken late Monday night.

....Forces raided Ramallah's central Manara area for the sole purpose of detaining the activist... Soldiers deployed on rooftops adjacent to the PA police headquarters, while three APVs patrolled the urban area. Onlookers counted at least 20 soldiers participating in the operation, which lasted less than half an hour.

Also participating were forces belonging to Israel's special "Oz" immigration task force, according to Israeli activist Jonathan Pollak, among others. Pollak said immigration police broke down Nováková's door, checked her passport, and took her away...

.......Her attorney, Omer Shatz, said Israel's alleged use of its special "Oz" unit was illegal. "This arrest is part of the continued and illegal use of the immigration police against activists, for political purposes," Shatz said in an ISM statement. Immigration police work under the explicit authority of the Israeli Ministry of the Interior, Shatz added, and thus would have no business operating in Palestinian cities.

....Israel controls all the entrances to the West Bank, and is at present the sole issuer of visas for Czech citizens.

......Ramallah, a city in Area A, has supposedly been under full PA security control since 2009.

While raids targeting Palestinians in outlying districts are nightly events, the detention of Nováková was unusual because Israeli forces tend only to enter PA-controlled areas for the purpose of capturing Palestinians on their "wanted" list, and usually for alleged security grounds. One such incursion was in December, when Israeli forces assassinated three Fatah operatives in their Nablus homes.

Last week, President Mahmoud Abbas said the PA was considering scaling back security ties with Israel on operations in certain Area A sites such as Ramallah. "If the coordination does not lead to a halt in the incursions and the provocations, we will think anew," Abbas said....... Full story