The occupation forces arrested, today, Monday, a citizen of the Gaza Strip while traveling through the Beit Hanoun checkpoint in the northern Gaza Strip.
Abdel Nasser Farwana, head of the studies and documentation unit at the Prisoners Affairs Authority and a member of the Authority’s management committee in the southern governorates, told our correspondent that the occupation arrested the citizen Walaa Muhammad Mustafa al-Rifai, 35, from the Gaza Strip, while accompanying his sick daughter and passing through the Beit Hanoun – Erez checkpoint.
Farwana added, “Al-Rifai lives in the central governorate of the Gaza Strip, and this is the first case of arrest at the Erez checkpoint since the beginning of this year.”
He explained that the occupation arrested ten citizens of the Gaza Strip through the checkpoint during the past year 2020, while they were traveling or transporting to and from the Strip. He pointed out that the occupation authorities forced many of the citizens who moved through Beit Hanoun checkpoint to wait for a long time at the crossing, and sometimes to detention for many hours or to be interrogated, pressured and attempted to blackmail them before allowing them to continue crossing.
He stressed that the continued detention of citizens across the Erez checkpoint confirms that the occupation authorities are continuing their previous approach by making the aforementioned checkpoint a trap to arrest citizens and a place for pressure and extortion without taking into account the human needs of citizens, especially since the aforementioned citizen had received prior Israeli approval and obtained a permit to travel through the aforementioned checkpoint and accompany him His sick daughter.