āWorst fear came trueā: Israel detains young Palestinian man for 20 months in effort to expel him to Brazil
It was the moment he had been dreading his entire life. Maen Abu Hafez, 24, and his friendsā car was stopped by Israeli soldiers at a flying checkpoint on their way home from Tulkarem city to his hometown, Jenin, in the northern occupied West Bank.
When the soldiers asked for their IDs ā which Palestinians must carry on them at all times in case they are stopped at a checkpoint ā Abu Hafez told them he didnāt have one. Within a few hours he was at an Israeli detention center.
Two days later, he was taken to the Givon Prison in central Israel ā a prison that holds mostly undocumented asylum seekers from Africa ā where he has been held for 20 months as an āillegal alien,ā while the Israeli government waits to deport him to Brazil.
Abu Hafez was born in Brazil to a Palestinian father, from the Jenin Refugee Camp, and a Brazilian mother. His family of six moved to the Jenin Camp when he was three years old, where he has lived ever since. Neither he, his two brothers, nor his mother, have Palestinian ID cards, giving them no legal status in the occupied territory.
āThere is no proof that he has any legal status in Brazil and the Brazilian authorities are, rightly, refusing to take in the young man against his will,ā Israeli Human Rights Organization Hamoked, who is handling Abu Hafezās case, said in an October press release.
āWorst fear came trueā: Israel detains young Palestinian man for 20 months in effort to expel him to Brazil