Palestinian Writer Majd Kayyal Arrested By ‘Israeli’ Police in Haifa

By Staff, Agencies

Palestinian writer, journalist and political activist Majd Kayyal was arrested by “Israeli” police at his home in Haifa on Tuesday morning, and has been detained on unknown charges.

At 6 a.m., police raided the home he shared with his mother, seizing Kayyal, 30, and his brother Ward, a student.

Afnan Khalifa, a lawyer from legal NGO Adalah representing Kayyal, told Middle East Eye that the brothers are under investigation by the Shin Bet, the “Israeli” entity’s domestic intelligence agency. Police gave Khalifa no other information and she has not spoken to Kayyal or his brother.

Suhair Badarni, Kayyal's mother, said: “I have no idea why they arrested him.

“At 6am I saw someone looking through my door and thought it was one of my sons. Then I realized it was 20 people from the police,” Badarni told MEE.

“I asked them if they had permission to enter but they came through the door aggressively nonetheless.”

Badarni said after entering her home, policemen made her sit in the living room and entered Kayyal’s bedroom where he was sleeping, before closing the door.

“Then they demanded I call my son Ward and tell him to come home. When I refused they called him themselves and told him ‘we will arrest your mother unless you come home’,” she recalled.

After ransacking the home, the police confiscated the Kayyal brothers’ computers and phones, and departed with Majd and Ward.

“My neighbors told me there was a huge number of police cars out on the street when they arrested my sons, like it was a large operation,” Badarni said.

Kayyal was born in northern Haifa, but his family are originally displaced from al-Birwa, a village in the Galilee known as the birthplace of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.

The 30-year-old studied philosophy at the Hebrew University in al-Quds [Jerusalem] and has participated in several political campaigns and projects.

He has written for Lebanese newspaper Assafir and the London-based daily al-Quds al-Arabi. His first novel, The Tragedy of Mr Matar, won the AM Qattan Foundation Young Writer Award.

Kayyal was arrested in 2014 after returning from Lebanon as he returned via Jordan and was accused of contacting a foreign agent.

He was placed under a gag order for five days. Eventually the charges were dismissed.