Israel – Situation of Mr. Hammouri

As Jean-Yves Le Drian told the National Assembly on February 22, “Since Mr. Hammouri’s arrest, we have continued to send specific demands to the Israeli authorities to end his administrative detention.” During his meetings with the Israeli Prime Minister, President Macron himself brought up Salah Hammouri’s situation and demanded an end to his administrative detention.

Pending his release, which we hope will be soon, Salah Hammouri will continue to enjoy the consular protection provided by the Vienna Convention, under which he has been able to receive regular visits from French consular authorities since the beginning of his detention.

Q - The Israeli defense minister has again asked for three months of administrative detention for the French (and Palestinian) attorney Salah Hammouri. This is the third time, as he was held first for six months, and then for four months since August 2017. If nothing is done, Salah Hammouri will have served a sentence of 13 months in prison without any charges having been leveled against him. His lawyers no longer have access to a file that is “secret.” He cannot see his French wife, who is banned from Israeli territory, or his two-year-old son. There’s nothing to say that at the end of these three months, the Israeli government won’t continue holding him in September, because administrative detentions can be renewed endlessly.

Asked about this by Humanité on June 27, you said you “regretted this decision, which the Israeli courts were to rule on in a few days,” and asserted that President Macron brought up Salah Hammouri’s case with Benjamin Netanyahu.
My questions are as follows:
1) What reply did you receive from the Israeli authorities?
2) Concretely, what measures are you considering to force Israel to release this French citizen?
3) Why don’t you speak about his case publicly as you have done with other imprisoned French citizens?

A - We refer you to the statement we just made.