An Israeli citizen has been detained by the Palestinian Authority in Nablus, Samaria, for five months, without intervention or help from Israeli authorities, his lawyers had revealed recently.
Muhammad Odeh, 21, was arrested in September by P.A. security forces, accused of involvement in robbing a truck transporting cigarettes in December 2023. An indictment was handed against him about four months ago in a court in Nablus, where he is also being held in a facility that belongs to the P.A. police.
Odeh’s family rejects the allegations leveled at the 21-year-old.
The story was first reported by Shomrim—The Center for Media and Democracy in Israel, on Feb. 12.
Odeh’s incarceration is a violation of the Oslo Accords, his attorneys told Shomrim.
Odeh’s father, Abdallah, was quoted as saying, “He worked with me in marble whenever I asked him, and in his free time he worked in deliveries. He is the only son with seven sisters. His mother passed away six years ago.”
Originally from Jaljulia, an Arab town northeast of Tel Aviv, Odeh managed to deliver a note to his family a month after his arrest.
“The Palestinian Authority abducted me and I ask the Israeli government to free me as soon as possible. I was tortured physically and mentally; I was beaten and told that ‘Nobody knows about you, not even your government,’” he wrote.
According to Shomrim, he further said that he refused to sign a confession to his alleged crime, after which P.A. police officers signed on his behalf.
One of his relatives appealed to Israel’s minister of national security at the time, Itamar Ben-Gvir, directly on the phone.
Ben-Gvir replied via voice message with: “What do you mean, held at a police station for three months. That sounds strange to me,” Shomrim reported.
“The Palestinian police is not us; the IDF should handle this. ... I’ll pass it on to the defense minister. Thank God, I’m responsible for the police in Israel, not the Palestinian police,” Ben-Gvir went on to say.
Odeh’s lawyer Reda Anbusi told Shomrim, “There is a very unusual case here of an Israeli citizen who has been detained by the Palestinian Authority for three months. We demand his immediate release. Due to his health condition and the conditions in which he is being held, there is serious concern for his life.
“We have reached out to the [Israeli] authorities on this matter, including the military, but there have been no results,” he added.
According to Shomrim, Israel’s agreement with the PLO stipulates that in the case of an arrest of an Israeli, the P.A. police are obliged to transfer him to Israel for trial.
