Salah Hammouri is a French national and a resident of East Jerusalem. He works as a field researcher in Jerusalem for Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, a Palestinian human rights organization. Addameer’s board member Khalida Jarrar has also been held in administrative detention since 2 July 2017, and three staff members from the organization are banned by the Israeli authorities from travelling outside Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).
Israeli forces detained Salah Hammouri during an overnight raid on 23 August 2017 at his home in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Kafr Aqab. On 29 August 2017, the Israeli Minister of Defence Avigdor Lieberman issued a six-month administrative detention order against Salah Hammouri. On 5 September, the day of the order’s confirmation hearing, the Jerusalem District Court decided to instead reinstate Salah Hammouri’s remaining time on a previous sentence for a conviction from 2005, under which he would serve three months in prison, a decision that was appealed by the prosecution. On 13 September Israel’s High Court ruled in favour of the prosecution’s appeal against reinstating the sentence. And on 17 September the Israeli District Court confirmed the initial six-month administrative detention order.