By Nir Hasson, Haaretz – 8 Feb 2010
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1148338.html
The Supreme Court ordered two pro-Palestinian foreign activists released on bail on Monday, saying Israeli immigration officers overstepped their bounds by detaining them in the West Bank.
The activists’ lawyer described their arrest as part of a campaign by Israel to choke off weekly demonstrations by Palestinians, left-wing Israelis and foreign activists against Israel’s West Bank separation barrier as peace efforts remain at a stalemate.
Israeli soldiers raided the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday and detained Spaniard Ariadna Jove Marti and Australian Bridgette Chappell, handing them over to immigration officers overseen by Israel’s Interior Ministry for possible deportation.
Both women belong to the International Solidarity Movement, which is at the forefront of anti-barrier demonstrations.
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.
Israel deported a leading ISM activist last month, the organization said. Eva Novakova, from the Czech Republic, had also been arrested in Ramallah.
