Salah Hamouri

Editorial update · 13 May 2026 — Hamouri was deported by Israeli government order to France on 18 December 2022 and has lived there since. France considered the expulsion contrary to law; the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights characterised it as a war crime. In November 2025 he filed a related complaint at the UN.

Background and Work

Salah Hamouri is a Franco-Palestinian human rights lawyer who has worked for years defending Palestinian detainees and documenting abuses in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Born in Jerusalem in 1985, he holds both Palestinian and French nationality and has spent his entire life in the city. His legal practice has focused on representing individuals held under administrative detention and other forms of arbitrary confinement by Israeli authorities.

Hamouri's advocacy has drawn sustained harassment from Israeli security services. In October 2020, United Nations human rights experts wrote to the Israeli government expressing concern over what they described as the "misuse of administrative and criminal law proceedings against Mr. Hamouri." His case has become emblematic of the broader Israeli policy of targeting Palestinian lawyers who defend political detainees.

The Arrest

On March 7, 2022, at approximately 4:45 am, around twenty-five Israeli forces broke into Hamouri's apartment in Kufr Aqab, a neighbourhood north of Jerusalem. The raiding unit included members of the Al-Mstaribeen special forces. They entered his bedroom while he was asleep, seized him from his bed, and bound his wrists with plastic zip-ties. Officers confiscated three mobile phones and one laptop before escorting him out. He was first taken to Ofer prison in Ramallah, then transferred to Al-Moskobiya detention centre in Jerusalem.

On March 9, 2022, Ofer military court extended Hamouri's detention for forty-eight hours under the Emergency Law of 1945, a British-era statute still used by Israeli military courts. The following day, March 10, 2022, the Israeli military commander issued a four-month administrative detention order. The order allows Israeli authorities to hold prisoners indefinitely on secret evidence, without charge or trial. Hamouri was not informed of the allegations against him. His lawyer was denied access to the file.

Prolonged Detention Without Charge

On June 5, 2022, the Israeli military extended Hamouri's administrative detention by a further three months. The order was sent directly to his lawyer without a hearing or court appearance. The file remains classified. As of the extension, Hamouri had been held for three months without knowing the substance of any accusation. Administrative detention orders in Israel are renewable indefinitely.

This detention is part of a long pattern. Hamouri has been arrested and detained multiple times over the past decade, each time in connection with his human rights work. No criminal charges related to violence have been sustained against him. The cycle of arrest, detention, and release without trial has marked his professional life.

Revocation of Residency and Threat of Expulsion

On June 29, 2021, Israeli Minister of the Interior Ayelet Shaked announced that she was adopting recommendations from Israeli intelligence services to revoke Hamouri's permanent residency in Jerusalem. The stated grounds were "breach of allegiance," a vague administrative standard applied almost exclusively to Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem. On October 18, 2021, the revocation became official. Hamouri's lawyer challenged the decision. The case is pending before the Israeli Supreme Court.

If the revocation is upheld, Hamouri will be permanently expelled from Jerusalem, the city where he was born and has lived for thirty-seven years. He will be barred from returning. The residency revocation is part of a broader Israeli policy targeting Palestinian Jerusalemites deemed politically active or disloyal. The policy has been condemned by human rights organisations as a form of forced transfer prohibited under international humanitarian law.

Family Separation

Hamouri's wife, Elsa Lefort, is a French national. In 2016, Israeli authorities denied her entry to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory and have refused to renew her permission to live with her husband. The couple's children, who hold French nationality, are also barred. The family has been forcibly separated for six years. Lefort has appealed the ban repeatedly. All appeals have been rejected. She and her children remain in France.

International Response

In October 2020, United Nations special rapporteurs wrote to the Israeli government expressing alarm at the pattern of administrative and judicial harassment targeting Hamouri. They noted that the measures appeared designed to punish him for his legitimate human rights activities. The letter called for his protection and for an end to reprisals against Palestinian human rights defenders. Israeli authorities did not respond substantively.

The French government has raised Hamouri's case repeatedly, citing his French nationality and requesting consular access. French officials have publicly called for his release and for the residency revocation to be rescinded. As of mid-2022, those calls had not resulted in any change in his status.