The Israeli police have raided a pair of Palestinian bookstores in East Jerusalem, arresting two of their homeowners and confiscating books, in a transfer that got here as Israel tightens its restrictions on free speech and cultural actions for Palestinians throughout the nation.
The police on Monday confirmed the arrests of two brothers, Mahmood Muna and Ahmed Muna, following the raids on Sunday, saying that books supporting terrorism had been being bought of their outlets, together with a youngsters’s coloring e-book entitled “From the Jordan to the Sea.”
The slogan “from the river to the sea” has lengthy been a rallying cry for Palestinian nationalism and is normally taken by Israelis as a denial of their nation’s proper to exist.
It was not instantly clear which different books had been the goal of the raid.
Murad Muna, a brother of the 2 store homeowners, denied that books had been being bought within the shops that promoted violence. The raid is a part of a “political persecution aimed toward silencing our voice within the public sphere,” he stated.
Germany’s ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, wrote on X that he knew the Munas, the homeowners of the Instructional Bookshop, which operates the 2 shops that had been raided, as “peace-loving, proud Palestinian Jerusalemites, open to dialogue and mental alternate.”
For the reason that Hamas-led assault on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israeli police have more and more arrested Palestinian residents of Israel on costs of incitement to terror on social media and have shut down movie screenings essential of the Israeli navy or authorities in Haifa and Jaffa.
The Instructional Bookshop’s retailers are in East Jerusalem, part of town that Israel captured from Jordan in 1967 and later annexed. Israel considers all of Jerusalem to be its undivided capital however most East Jerusalem residents are Palestinians, and the United Nations has deemed it occupied territory.
On Monday morning, protesters gathered outdoors a courtroom in Jerusalem that was deliberating on the detention of the 2 males.
The brothers’ lawyer, Nasser Oday, stated the 2 males would stay in detention till Tuesday morning, then be below home arrest for 5 days, pending an investigation.
Mai Muna, the spouse of Mahmoud Muna, stated the police went into the bookstores on the primary industrial street in East Jerusalem round 3 p.m. on Sunday.
“They began throwing books off the cabinets,” Ms. Muna stated in a cellphone interview on Monday as she waited on the courthouse for her husband’s listening to. “They didn’t communicate any English — they had been in search of something with a Palestinian flag.”
The 2 shops and a restaurant have for many years been a cornerstone of Palestinian cultural and academic life in East Jerusalem, serving each locals and folks from overseas and internet hosting talks and movie screenings.
