Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has condemned the “brutal” attack by Israeli forces on Jerusalem Governor Adnan Ghaith and his family on Monday.
Abbas praised in a statement “the national role played by Ghaith in serving Palestinians in Jerusalem, strengthening their steadfastness and confronting the Judaization schemes.”
He further hailed the “steadfastness of the Muslim and Christian Jerusalemites in the face of the Israeli occupation and its measures against the holy city and its Islamic and Christian holy sites.”
Abbas made a telephone call to Ghaith and wished him a speedy recovery, the statement added.
Special units of the Israeli occupation forces stormed Ghaith’s home in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan and assaulted him, his sons and cousins, some of whom were injured. They also detained three of his relatives.
Israel occupied east Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community.
It considers the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinian Authority considers east Jerusalem the capital of its own future state and tries to maintain a presence on the ground.
Israel bans all PA activities in the city. As a result, the PA has a minister for Jerusalem affairs and a Jerusalem governor located in Al-Ram, just on the other side of an Israeli wall that separates the city and the occupied West Bank.
Ghaith has been arrested at least 28 times since his appointment in 2018 for allegedly carrying out PA activities in east Jerusalem.
Last year, Israel’s commander of the Home Front Command informed Ghaith that based on the 1975 Emergency Law, his movement will be limited to Silwan only and that he is banned from contacting 50 Palestinian officials, including Abbas.
These figures include Prime Minister Mohamed Shtayyeh, Abbas's deputy in the Fatah movement Mahmoud al-Aloul, Secretary General of the Fatah Central Committee Jibril Rajoub, Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh, Minister of Jerusalem Fadi al-Hadmi, as well as several officials inside and outside Jerusalem.