RAMALLAH: It was shortly after 1 a.m. Wednesday when Abdelrahman Badr said he heard footsteps outside his home in Hebron in the occupied West Bank. Soon Israeli forces were at his door, he said. They were looking for his wife.
The forces took Itaf Badr, who serves on the board of a prominent health charity, and said she was wanted for questioning, driving her away in the dead of night, according to Abdelrahman.
She was one of five Palestinian women detained by Israeli security forces across the West Bank on Wednesday. The early morning raids targeted multiple cities, including Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus and Bethlehem, the women’s families and Palestinian rights groups said.
For most of Israel’s decades-long occupation, Palestinian men and boys have borne the brunt of the military’s effort to enforce it, and have been swept up in mass detentions or spent years in jail for throwing rocks at Israeli troops.
But security forces are detaining more women and girls, said Abdullah Al-Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, a nongovernmental organization that supports political prisoners in Israeli jails. He said gender is no longer a distinguishing factor in who the group believes Israel is targeting, from political activists to student leaders at Palestinian universities.
AP