Israel refused to let a jailed Palestinian senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group attend her daughter’s funeral on Tuesday, sparking outrage from leftwing groups as well as Arab Israeli lawmakers in the Knesset.
The Israel Prisons Service said it would not allow Khalida Jarrar to attend the funeral of her daughter Suha, 31, a Palestinian rights activist who died of a heart attack in Ramallah on Monday.
Jarrar had been convicted on membership in a terror group in March. The PFLP has carried out several terror attacks against Israelis in recent years as well as being behind a slew of suicide bombings during the Second Intifada.
“The prisoner is classified as a security prisoner,” the letter from the prison service read according to a translation by the Times of Israel. “Therefore, her request does not meet the threshold conditions that allow this consideration and as a result, it is not within the authority of officials, including the [prisons] commissioner, to grant this request.”
Osama Saadi from the Arab-Israeli party the Joint List released a statement calling the move “disgraceful.”
“When you are a Palestinian political prisoner, then the ‘enlightened’ occupation prohibits the basic right to mourn and accompany your daughter on her final journey. It is shameful and disgraceful — on the matter of political prisoners, there is no difference between [Israeli Prime Minister Naftali] Bennett and [Foreign Minister Yair] Lapid’s government and that of [predecessor Benjamin] Netanyahu,” he said.
Jarrar was arrested along with dozens of other PFLP members in October 2019 following a terror attack by the organization that killed a 17-year-old Israeli girl.
IDF prosecutors was accused of “involvement with terrorist activities and violent public disturbances” but formally charged. She was previously convicted of incitement to violence and “promoting terror activities” and served a one year prison sentence in 2015.