Israel border police detain Al Jazeera reporter in Jerusalem

on

Israeli border police forcefully detained a veteran correspondent for the Al Jazeera satellite channel while she was reporting from an embattled Jerusalem neighborhood where dozens of Palestinian families are slated for eviction by Jewish settlers.

Givara Budeiri was released late Saturday, several hours after border police detained her in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, where she had been wearing body armor marked “press.” Al Jazeera said police also destroyed equipment belonging to a cameraman for the channel.

Budeiri suffered a broken arm and remained under observation Sunday at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital, said Walid Omary, the Jerusalem bureau chief for Al Jazeera.

Budeiri had been reporting regularly from Sheikh Jarrah, Omary said.

On Saturday, she was covering a Palestinian sit-in at the site. Omary said Israeli border police asked for her ID and that she offered to call her driver to get it from her car. Omary said the forces refused to let her retrieve it and instead started shouting and pushing her. He said she told them not to touch her. At one point, the officers handcuffed her and pushed her into a border police vehicle.

Omary said Budeiri is accredited by Israel’s Government Press Office.

Israeli police did not respond to a request for comment.

Al Jazeera’s acting director general, Mostefa Souag, condemned the police actions. “The systematic targeting of our journalists is in total violation of all international conventions,” he said.

“They are attacking the journalists in east Jerusalem because they don’t want them to continue covering what’s happening inside Sheikh Jarrah,” Omary said.

The tension in Sheikh Jarrah has fueled weeks of unrest and helped spark an Israel-Hamas war after the Islamic militant group fired several rockets toward Jerusalem on May 10, positioning itself as a defender of Palestinian rights in the holy city.

The war, in which 254 people were killed in Gaza and 12 in Israel, ended May 21. In all, Gaza militants fired more than 4,000 rockets toward Israel, while Israel bombed hundreds of Gaza targets it said were linked to militants.

The most imminent Jerusalem evictions are on hold, following the intervention by Israel’s attorney general, but the settlers’ campaign continues.

Rights groups fear the evictions could still be carried out in the coming months as international attention wanes, potentially igniting another round of bloodshed. The Israeli watchdog Ir Amim, which closely follows the various court cases, estimates that at least 150 households in two neighborhoods are threatened with eviction.


Discover more from Current PH

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

MUST READ

Labor Day 2026: The Illusion of Employment in the...

Every Labor Day, the Philippine government celebrates the Filipino worker with familiar numbers: high employment, steady growth, resilience. But strip away the headlines, and a...

Balikatan 2026: Balancing Great Power Rivalry

Balikatan 2026 is a strategic exercise that places the Philippines at the center of the Indo-Pacific’s evolving security architecture. With 17,000 troops from seven...

Malacanang Man Brains Behind MC Taxi Ghost Riders and...

The so-called “ghost rider” controversy should alarm anyone who still believes public funds are treated with even minimal care. At its core, this is...

MC Taxi Ghost Riders nakakulimbat ng halos P 1...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKwS7JTxnycSa hearing ng Committee ng Transportation chaired by no less than Cong. Franz Pumaren, lumalabas na between 350 million to 1.2 billion pesos ang...

MC Taxi Ghost Riders: Up to P 1.2 Billion...

Brazen is not a word we should use lightly when discussing systems that affect public welfare. But the pattern emerging from the motorcycle taxi...

Discover more from Current PH

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Discover more from Current PH

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading