Israel Arrests Palestinian American Woman In West Bank

Israeli forces broke into a 46-year-old Palestinian American woman's home in the West Bank and arrested her. Her family has no idea where she is at.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Israeli forces have arrested a 46-year-old Palestinian American woman after breaking into her home and pulling her from her bed in the occupied West Bank, her family said Tuesday, saying they had no idea where she was nearly two days after she was detained.

News of the arrest came just ahead of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s arrival in Israel on a diplomatic mission aimed at forging a cease-fire in Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip. Samaher Esmail’s congressman in her home state of Louisiana vowed “to get to the bottom” of her arrest, while the State Department said it was looking into the matter.

Relatives said that Israeli soldiers burst into the woman’s house while she was sleeping in the early hours of Monday and pulled her out of bed in the West Bank town of Silwad. A video of the incident posted to Twitter by her son showed soldiers surrounding her and herding her into an armored vehicle.

“They broke into her house and pulled her out, took her out of her bed,” said her brother, 35-year-old Mubarak Esmail, who lives in the U.S. “They didn’t even let her put on her hijab,” or traditional headcovering. He said his sister lived alone and probably did not even hear the soldiers because she takes medication for her uterine cancer that makes her drowsy.

The Israeli military said she had been arrested for “incitement on social media” and taken away for questioning.