Israel arrests Palestinian politician Khalida Jarrar in West Bank home raid

Israel arrested senior Palestinian political figure Khalida Jarrar in a dawn raid on her home in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, official Palestinian news site WAFA reported.

Israeli forces arrested Jarrar, a senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and former lawmaker, after raiding and searching her home in Al-Bireh, a town near Ramallah.

Jarrar has frequently been a target of the Israeli forces, and has been arrested and detained on multiple occasions.

She was last released from prison in September 2021, after serving two years on charges of belonging to the PFLP, a left-wing group with a military arm.

While in detention, she had not been allowed to attend the funeral of her daughter Suha, a researcher and social justice activist who was found dead at her home in July 2021 after a period of ill health.

Khalida Jarrar has otherwise spent long spells in administrative detention, a practice Israel uses to detain individuals without formal charge or trial that has been roundly condemned by human rights groups.

Israel has stepped up its brutal crackdown on Palestinians in the West Bank since it launched its assault on Gaza on 7 October, in which it has killed almost 21,000 people and displaced almost all of the Palestinian territory's more than two million inhabitants.

Israeli forces have killed hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank since 7 October, and detained close to 5,000.

On the same day they apprehended Jarrar, Israeli forces arrested journalist Hamad Taqatqa at his home in the town of Beit Fajjar, south of Bethlehem, WAFA reported.

On Monday night, Israeli forces raided Palestinian homes and made arrests in towns and cities across the West Bank, according to WAFA.