The IDF cracked down on the Palestinian Authority’s sheltering foreign anti-Israel protestors and entered Ramallah on Sunday to arrest two women accused of being involved in “illegal riots that interfered with Israeli security operations.”
The PA charged Israel with violating agreements giving it self-rule. However, the same agreements allow Israel to act when its security is endangered. The IDF explained that the two women, Arianda Jove Marti of Spain and Bridgette Chappell of Australia, have been involved in riots protesting the separation barrier.
The women, both of them in their 20s, are activists of the pro-Arab International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and were officially charged by the IDF with remaining illegally in Israel, where one of them entered on a temporary tourist visa and the other on a fake visa. The ISM admitted that the visas were not valid but charged that the women did not break any law.
An ISM activist said that about a dozen soldiers arrested the two women early Sunday morning as part of an intensive campaign to prevent a spread of violent demonstrations that have resulted in dozens of injuries to soldiers as well as Arab and foreign protestors, many of them anarchists.
Last month, Israel deported a Czech woman who also was arrested in Ramallah.