Israel to deport female West Bank prisoner to Gaza Strip

Date: 11 / 04 / 2009 Time: 09:28

[Ma'anImages]

Gaza – Ma’an – Israeli forces have refused to let Palestinian female prisoner Shirin Ash-Sheikh return to her family home in Ramallah after she completed her prison term in an Israeli facility; instead officials insisted on deporting her to the Gaza Strip.

According to Abd An-Nasser Farawnah, a researcher in detainees’ affairs, Ash-Sheikh was born in Gaza in 1985 and moved with her family to Ramallah in 1998. She was apprehended in 2003 and was sentenced to six years in jail, which she will complete on Sunday, 12 April.

Farwana telephoned Shirin’s sister in Ramallah, who told him that Israeli authorities insisted on sending Shirin to Gaza instead of joining her family in Ramallah.

Farwana asserted that Israel has deliberately been deporting some detainees to the Gaza Strip and to Jordan under different pretexts, such as not having a West Bank ID card or family reunification rules.

He pointed out that eight prisoners were sent to Jordan only a few days ago. In 2002, 26 West Bank citizens besieged in the Church of Nativity were deported to Gaza.