Isreali Police Raids Famous Palestinian Bookstores In East Jerusalem

Israeli police raided two Palestinian bookstores in occupied east Jerusalem on Sunday, ceasing books and arresting one of the owners and his nephew, according to their family members.

CCTV footage shared by the owners, four brothers from the Muna family, shows police officers putting books in trash bags at one of the branches of the Educational Bookshop, a decades-old respected institution with Arabic- and English-language branches.

“They did throw some books on the ground but the Arabic (language) store is where the material damage was,” store owner Iyad Muna told CNN.

Israeli police said in a statement Monday that two people were arrested on suspicion of “selling books containing incitement and support for terrorism.”

“The suspects who allegedly sold the books were taken into custody by police detectives,” the police spokesperson’s unit said.

An Israeli court on Monday extended the detention of the two men – Mahmoud and Ahmed Muna – by 24 hours, to be followed by five days of house arrest. Their family said Tuesday that the pair had indeed been released to house arrest.

Police had originally asked for their detention to be extended for eight days while the investigation continued.

The pair’s lawyer, Nasser Odeh, told CNN on Monday that he was “surprised” by the Israeli police’s request for an extension of the men’s detention. “During the proceedings, we legally argued that this search order was not based on solid grounds,” he said.

“We also argued that the books in question discuss Palestinian history, human rights and the suffering experienced by the Palestinian people and various communities. Moreover, we asserted that these books do not pose any threat or danger and do not support the allegations made against them,” Odeh continued.

Israeli police said that “detectives encountered numerous books containing inciteful material with nationalist Palestinian themes” in the stores.

Among them was a children’s coloring book titled “From the River to the Sea.” The expression is politically controversial in Israel. Some Palestinians use the phrase in support of a homeland between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, but many Jews regard it as a call for Israel’s destruction.

CNN/Ejiofor Ezeifeoma