Berlin, Germany – A Palestinian employee of the German state-funded development agency has been imprisoned in Israel for more than a month, where she was beaten and subjected to abusive and humiliating treatment, her family and lawyer say.
Baraa Odeh, 34, works for the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and was detained by Israeli border guards on March 5 as she returned to her home in Ramallah after a work trip to Germany.
She has since been sentenced to three months of administrative detention without charge.
Neither her husband, who is a German citizen, nor her family have had direct contact with Odeh since his arrest.
“Our lives are turned upside down,” his sister Shireen Odeh told Al Jazeera, adding that his family is extremely concerned about his well-being.
“The only thing we do is think about her. We haven’t had a normal life since they arrested her.”
Mahmoud Hassan, Odeh’s lawyer who spoke to her in prison, said she was physically attacked and subjected to inhumane conditions.
“When she arrived [at Hasharon] arrest, she was searched while the police officer shouted at her. She was kept in a cell and later a police officer who also shouted at her hit her on the leg,” said Hassan, who works with Addameer Prisoner Support, an NGO that supports Palestinian prisoners.
“The police officer pushed her into the corner and the keys he had hurt her hand. He kicked her. She said she had marks on her chest. He was threatening to keep her in this cell overnight.
“After a few hours, he took her to another room that wasn’t clean and was very cold.”
The second room had security cameras. The bathroom was so dirty that Odeh refused to use it. She was then transferred to the overcrowded Damon prison and searched again.
According to reports, detainees there said it was difficult to access medical care or clean clothing. Guards allegedly blindfolded and handcuffed prisoners as they were transferred and prevented them from sleeping.
Israel has regularly detained and detained workers from Palestinian aid organizations and sometimes UNRWA, but it is unusual for the Israeli army to hold an employee of a Western organization like GIZ under administrative detention.
Since October 7, when the Israel-Palestine conflict intensified, Israel has drastically increased the number of detentions of Palestinians in the West Bank. The majority were held under administrative detention without charge or due process. Administrative detention orders are often extended, sometimes for years.
Prisoner rights groups and released detainees have warned about Israel’s systematic use of torture in its prisons, especially in recent months.
Israel arrested 8,425 Palestinians, including around 280 women and 540 children, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem between October 7 and April 22, according to Addameer. Some 5,210 administrative detention orders were issued during the same period, while 16 prisoners died in Israeli prisons.
Meanwhile, Israel has prevented the Red Cross from carrying out humanitarian visits to detainees since 7 October.
Germany ‘critical’ of administrative detention
GIZ, one of the world’s largest international development agencies, has operated in the occupied Palestinian territories since the 1980s. It works on issues such as economic development, governance and peacebuilding. It is financed by the German government, one of Israel’s closest allies, and is supervised by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
“Israeli security forces arrested a national employee of Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH following a private trip. After a subsequent hearing, security forces ordered three months of administrative detention, as far as we know, unrelated to his professional employment,” said a GIZ spokesperson.
“GIZ is working with all the means at its disposal to clarify the background. We also maintain close contact with the family.”
Hassan told Al Jazeera that she was visited by a German consular official in prison. The German Federal Foreign Ministry did not comment on this visit when asked by Al Jazeera.
Odeh is a technical consultant at GIZ, where she has worked for 10 years. She has recently worked on projects focused on youth empowerment and psychosocial support for children, primarily in the West Bank.
She is also a postgraduate student at Birzeit University, where she serves on a student representative body.
After being detained at the crossing of the King Hussein Bridge (Allenby), which separates Jordan from the West Bank, Odeh was first taken to the Ofer detention center and then to Hasharon prison, where she was allegedly beaten. A few days later, she was transferred to Damon Prison, where dozens of female detainees were held.
On March 11, an Israeli judge ordered Odeh administratively detained until June 4, saying she posed a security threat.
During a hearing on March 19, she was accused of working with a banned political group based on confidential military information. Her lawyer said she denies this accusation and that Israel has not presented any evidence against her.
BMZ told Al Jazeera it does not comment on individual cases.
“The protection of human life and human dignity must be the top priority in all situations – including in the context of armed conflicts and in detention centers,” a spokesperson said. “The Federal Government criticizes the practice of administrative detention – that is, the possibility of detaining people for a longer period based on suspicion and without trial. International humanitarian law sets strict limits on this practice.”
At the time of publication, Israeli authorities had not responded to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
