Official Hamas poster of the shahid mujahid
Monday, May 6, 2024, 13:18 This morning (Monday), the Jerusalem Magistrates Court extended the remand by only three days of the Beit El resident suspected of involvement in the death of a Hamas activist, twelve days fewer than the GSS requested. During the hearing, it turned out that neither the GSS nor the police have obtained the death certificate of the deceased, and there are no test results indicating the circumstances of his death. Although the lack of this information was revealed at the previous hearing, this hearing was also held without it. Honenu engaged the services of Attorney Ariel Atari and Attorney Asaf Gonen to represent the detainee.
At the close of the hearing, Judge Gad Ehrenberg ruled that, “There are no grounds to agree to the request as presented by the GSS. The case against the accused must be supported by better evidence for the court to consider a prolonged remand extension such as the investigating unit is requesting.”
Attorney Atari: “The GSS asked for a 15-day remand extension, and the court refused. The detainee has spent the past few days in GSS interrogations, including a six-hour interrogation on Shabbat. The GSS has also arranged for the toilet in his cell to be clogged in an attempt to get him to talk. They were unsuccessful.
“As of this moment, there is no evidence indicating that the Hamas activist is in fact deceased, and if he is deceased, what was the cause? Was it gunfire from other Hamas members, or any other cause? For this reason the court extended the remand by only three days. We expect and hope that in the next few days he will be released from remand.”
At the previous hearing, it was revealed that the alleged deceased, Omar Ahmed Abed Alani Hamed, from the Arab village of Beitin in the Binyamin region is a Hamas activist. After his alleged death, Hamas identified him as one of their members and issued an official poster announcing the death of a “combat martyr” (shahid mujahid). At his funeral, which was conducted as a Hamas activist funeral, there were many calls of incitement, including “We are the men of Mohammed Deif.”
Last Thursday, the detainee arrived at the GSS offices in Petah Tikva for a meeting to which he had been summoned. For many hours he was asked to cooperate with the Jewish Department of the GSS and give information and background information about incidents in and residents of Yehuda and Shomron. He refused. Late in the evening, he was informed that he was being detained on suspicion of involvement with a murder.