MP Ahmed Attoun has rejected a deal to leave Jerusalem in exchange for his freedom as court has convened for the first time in a banishment case since his arrest a week ago.
Safa news agency quoted one of Attoun’s defense attorneys as saying that the Israeli prosecutor asked the Magistrate’s Court to extend Attoun’s detention until the end of the proceedings in an indictment filed last week over illegal entry into Israel.
After hearing the allegations from the prosecution and the defense, the court decided to release Attoun on a bail of NIS 50,000 (USD 13,270) and two people acting as surety for his future appearance in court, Attoun’s lawyer Fadi al-Qawasimi said.
But the court also conditioned that Attoun sign a pledge that he would not enter Jerusalem without prior permission from the Israeli occupation authorities.
Attoun was abducted from a sit-in tent at the Jerusalem Red Cross a week ago in an operation involving undercover Israeli paramilitary men.
In a separate development, the Negev prison administration has blocked Palestinian prisoner Jamal Abul-Haija from receiving visits from his 16-year-old daughter and lawyer in an endeavor to curb a hunger strike by the Hamas leader.
Permission had been coordinated ahead of both visits.
Also, at around 9am Monday, Israeli prison guards raided Abul-Haija’s cell and confiscated all electrical appliances.
Abul-Haija has declared hunger strike and is demanding that he be released from an eight-year stretch of solitary confinement and that he be allowed visitation by family members who he has not seen since he was first arrested in 2002.
