Arabs in Israel face reprisals over online solidarity with Gaza

HAIFA, Israel: A campaign of arrests, sackings and dismissals have targeted Israeli Arabs or Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem over social media posts expressing solidarity with the heavily bombarded Gaza Strip.

Israeli Arabs -- many of whom identify as Palestinian citizens of Israel -- have expressed solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza amid Israel´s aerial bombing campaign that has so far killed over 4,000 people in the impoverished enclave, the majority civilians, according to the health ministry in the Strip.

The campaign comes in response to an October 7 attack that saw Hamas fighters infiltrate into southern Israel by land, air and sea, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians on the day of the attack, according to Israeli officials.

Abir Bakr, a lawyer for Palestinian singer Dalal Abu Amneh who was arrested briefly four days ago, told AFP her client “went to the police station to file a complaint after she received hundreds of messages in both English and Arabic threatening her and her family with death”.

But rather than investigating her complaint, “she was detained because of a comment she posted on Facebook,” Bakr said.

“They put cuffs on her hands and feet, and subjected her to insults and humiliation. They want to frighten people and teach them a lesson through Dalal” because “she wrote a single sentence” on social media, Bakr continued.

Following the start of Israel´s bombardment of Gaza, Abu Amneh had posted “there is no victor but Allah” alongside a Palestinian flag on her Facebook page.

The Israeli police said Abu Amneh had been arrested on suspicion of “publication of incitement” and “behaviour that could harm public order”. The famed singer -- who has several hundred thousand followers on Instagram -- is also a neurologist in the Israeli city of Haifa.

The magistrate court in the city of Nazareth on Wednesday ordered her release on bail set at 2,500 shekels ($625). But she was placed under house arrest in her mother´s home, and has been forbidden from posting about the ongoing war for 45 days.

Bakr pointed out that “translations from Arabic to Hebrew are often faulty, which leads to misunderstanding of the context” in many of the posts. Every day, Israeli police publish statements detailing the arrests of people who have written or liked content they consider inciting.

Among them are those who circulated video clips of the Israelis who were killed during the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, police said. Many Arabs in Israel and residents of east Jerusalem -- annexed by Israel following the 1967 Six Day War -- refused to talk to AFP, fearing reprisals.

Israeli police on Wednesday said they “arrested 76 people” from east Jerusalem “on suspicion of committing crimes of incitement on Facebook and supporting terrorist organisations”. Lawyers also said a young man in the village of Kabul in northern Israel was arrested for five days simply for posting a photo of children in Gaza with the words “my heart is with you”.

Hassan Jabareen, director of the Adalah organisation which works to defend the rights of the Arab minority in Israel, told AFP “there are many people on the right wing who are filing complaints against Arab citizens”.

Israeli police chief Kobi Shabtai has meanwhile banned any “demonstrations against the war”, which Adalah considers illegal. According to Israeli media, at least 63 Israeli Arabs have been arrested so far for posts that allegedly “support terrorism”, though details of most posts were not made clear.

Students and workers inside Israel have been subject to dismissals and legal prosecution, Israel´s left-leaning Haaretz newspaper wrote in an editorial on Wednesday. The state of emergency currently imposed in Israel “constitutes fertile ground for violation of individual rights, and especially freedom of expression”, the editorial said.

“Arab citizens expressing opinions diverging from the general trend have been fired,” it added. The newspaper further said “the Rehovot municipality, for example, demanded that construction contractors in the city sign a promise not to allow Arab workers on the work site”. Jaafar Farah, director of the Musawah rights organisation, told AFP that “since the beginning of the war, almost 150 (Arab) workers have been fired and about 200 students from various universities and educational institutions have been dismissed” for expressing solidarity with Gaza on social media.

Heads of Israeli universities on Wednesday published a letter to Education Minister Yoav Kisch in which they said “they play their role in holding accountable the few who express solidarity with terrorist organisations”. And an Arab teacher in a secondary school in the city of Tiberias was suspended until further notice for liking the page “Eye on Palestine” on Instagram, according to a group of lawyers following the case.