Hana Shalabi, Coming Off Hunger Strike, Exiled to Gaza for 3 Years

Hana Shalabi, who refused to eat for 44 days while being detained by Israel, is being deported to Gaza today in a move that some say is a war crime. Shalabi's detention, in which she was held without trial due to Israeli laws that allow the government to detain prisoners they deem to pose a national security risk, was also controversial. Groups such as Physicians for Human Rights and Amnesty International condemned her detention and others like it.

Shalabi had been in Israeli custody since February 16, where she was being held without trial, according to Reuters. In recent days she reportedly agreed to a deal to be exiled to Gaza for three years in order to get out of prison.

Photos of Shalabi, engaged in a tearful goodbye to her family, were posted on a Twitter account run by the Israeli government. Ali Abunimah, the founder of Electronic Intifada, says that the use of a prisoner's picture as propaganda may also constitute a violation of the Geneva Conventions.

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Reuters: Israel exiles former Palestinian detainee to Gaza

A Palestinian woman held by Israel without charge was deported to the Gaza Strip on Sunday under a deal that ended her 44-day hunger strike.

Hana Shalabi of the Islamic Jihad militant group was put into so-called " administrative detention" on February 16. An Israeli military official said that in return for her release from jail, she had agreed to three years' exile in the Gaza Strip.

A resident of the occupied West Bank, Shalabi went on hunger strike the day she was arrested, in protest at being held without trial. An Israeli official has said she was suspected of involvement in planned Islamic Jihad attacks.

She had been jailed previously by Israel and freed in October as part of a swap for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held captive in Hamas Islamist-ruled Gaza for more than five years.

Shalabi arrived in Gaza before nightfall in an ambulance, after a tearful farewell with family members who saw her at Gaza's Erez crossing with Israel before she was deported, medics who escorted her said.

Israel says it uses detention without trial to protect intelligence sources in any legal proceedings against a Palestinian suspect.

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Electronic Intifada: On top of banishment to Gaza, Israel uses Twitter to further violate Hana al-Shalabi's rights

Today, Hana al-Shalabi, who spent 43 days on hunger strike to protest her detention without charge or trial by Israel, was banished to the Gaza Strip for three years, under a highly controversial deal that Addameer and Physicians for Human Rights- Israel have said is illegal under international law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.

In the course of this appalling act, Israeli occupation forces used Twitter to commit an additional breach of international law and Hana al-Shalabi's rights.

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