Two Portuguese Held by Israeli Troops at a West Bank Olive Harvest, One of Them a Journalist, Are Due Home After Agreeing to Be Deported
The Foreign Ministry says both are well and suffered no violence. Israel has given no reason for the arrests near Rantis, and the journalists' union calls them another attack on the press.
Two Portuguese citizens detained by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, one of them a journalist, were due to land in Portugal on Saturday after agreeing to be deported. The Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros (Foreign Ministry, MNE) says both are well and were not subjected to physical violence. Neither has been publicly named.
Detained during the olive harvest
The two were detained by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on 8 October near Rantis, a village in the Ramallah area surrounded by Israeli settlements. The newspaper Público first reported the arrests, saying they took place during the olive harvest in the Ramallah and al-Bireh governorate. The ministry confirmed them to Observador and to the Lusa news agency.
According to RTP, the pair belonged to a group of five Portuguese that included two journalists. As of Friday, Notícias ao Minuto reported, the Israeli authorities had given no reason for the detentions.
On Thursday the ministry said Portugal's representative office in Ramallah was "following the situation closely" and was in contact with the Israeli authorities. By Thursday night it was telling Lusa that the two "are well, agreed to deportation and were not the target of any physical violence".
A day's delay
On Friday morning the ministry, through the Portuguese embassy in Tel Aviv, said the two would be deported that same day and should reach Portugal by the evening. Later on Friday an official source told Lusa the plan had changed. "It was necessary to change the way the citizens return, and so the journey should only take place tomorrow," the source said, confirming they would fly home on Saturday. Portuguese diplomats had visited both in Tel Aviv on Friday and found them physically well, the ministry added.
The ministry, led by Paulo Rangel, had not announced their arrival by early Saturday afternoon.
The journalists' union calls it an attack on the press
The Sindicato dos Jornalistas (Journalists' Union) said on 8 October that it was following the detentions "with enormous concern" and had been in contact with the detained journalist's lawyers. Under the heading "Journalism is not a crime", it demanded the immediate release of both citizens and said it would report the case to the European Federation of Journalists and the International Federation of Journalists, of which it is a member.
The union also urged the Foreign Ministry to intervene with Israel. "We want to know where these Portuguese are being held and in what conditions," its statement said, "and an explanation for yet another attack by Israel on journalists, on press freedom and on freedom of expression." The deportation announced the next day did not answer the union's question about why the two were detained.
Nothing published so far says why the group of five had travelled to the West Bank, or whether the other three are still there. If the two choose to speak on their return, theirs will be the first first-hand account of what happened at Rantis.
