Israel releases detained Palestinian booksellers after Jerusalem shop raid

Israeli authorities have released the owners of Jerusalem’s Educational Bookshop from custody following a raid and widespread global calls for their release.

Ahmed Muna was released early on Tuesday morning and Mahmoud Muna was released on Tuesday afternoon, according to independent publishers Saqi Books, who specialise in Middle Eastern literature.

Yesterday evening the shop was bustling with people coming to purchase from it, in solidarity with the owners and to condemn the Israeli raid and arrests.

Israeli forces detained Ahmed and Mahmoud on 9 February for "disturbing public order".

Global outrage

The UK-based publisher Saqi Books called their arrest a "stark reminder of the ongoing campaign to stifle free speech and any information that challenges Israel’s occupation of Palestine".

The publishers added that they were led away in handcuffs, while dozens of books were confiscated.

"They used Google Translate on the books, and anything they didn’t like, they took," Murad Muna, Mahmoud’s brother said in a statement.

"They even found a Haaretz newspaper with a picture of the hostages and asked what it was, saying it was incitement. They took every book with a Palestinian flag on it," he continued.

Rights groups and activists slammed their detention and the ransacking of the bookshop on Sunday afternoon.

CCTV footage also showed Israeli forces filling black bin bags with books to take away, several reports stated.

Some of the books examined by police included literature by renowned Jewish author Noam Chomsky and Israeli historian Ilan Pappe.

The family-owned bookshop is well-known in Jerusalem and carries a range of Arabic and English language titles. Tourists regularly visit the store, while locals attend events hosted there.

Nasser Odeh, the attorney representing Mahmoud and Ahmed said their arrest was part of "a new policy followed by Israeli police in Jerusalem to suppress freedom of expression and Palestinian thought and prevent learning and education".

He added the charge against the men was changed from "inciting and supporting terrorism" to "disturbing the public order".

"To open an incitement investigation, the police need approval from the public prosecution. It seems they realised they had no chance of getting that approval, so they switched the charge to the more generic "disturbing public order" offence, he said.

"I have never encountered a case where someone is held in custody overnight for suspicion of disturbing public order," he continued.

Widespread condemnation 

The release of the bookshop owners comes after a petition signed by UK members of Parliament and other notable figures gained traction, and called on the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs David Lammy, the British government and other states and international organisations to pressure the Israeli government to immediately drop the charges against them.

The petition was signed by MPs Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and author Susan Abulhawa as well as journalist Owen Jones.

Campaigners also signed the petition, with Ben Jamal from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Alex Kenny from the Stop the War Coalition adding their names to the list.

The New Arab's Elias Jahshan, an editor and journalist who has a published anthology which is available in the bookshop also signed the petition.

Husam Zomlot, Palestinine's ambassador to the UK, issued a statement on the arrests, calling it a "campaign to censor knowledge".

"Freedom of expression is a cornerstone of all just societies. There is no genuine peace without the freedom to read, and no freedom to read without booksellers able to carry out their work in safety," he wrote on social media platform X.