By Jaclynn Ashly: Khalida Jarrar leaned back in her chair, legs crossed, and puffed on a cigarette.
She was sitting in a quiet and spacious living room in her home in central Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, where the lawmaker has only recently returned after being released from a 20-month stint in Israeli prison.
Despite being held for almost two years, she was never charged with a crime.
The prominent leftist lawmaker and civil society figure who was in charge of the Palestinian Legislative Council’s prisoners committee when the parliament was still nominally active broke into a deep-throated chuckle when asked whether she was worried that Israel might arrest her again.
“Why do all of you [journalists] ask me that?” she queried, before answering herself.
“This question is for the occupation, I think,” she said, her hands gesturing with a lit cigarette between her fingers. “Will the occupation continue demolishing Palestinian homes? Do they plan to continue denying us our rights of national determination?”
She was sitting in a quiet and spacious living room in her home in central Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, where the lawmaker has only recently returned after being released from a 20-month stint in Israeli prison.
Despite being held for almost two years, she was never charged with a crime.
The prominent leftist lawmaker and civil society figure who was in charge of the Palestinian Legislative Council’s prisoners committee when the parliament was still nominally active broke into a deep-throated chuckle when asked whether she was worried that Israel might arrest her again.
“Why do all of you [journalists] ask me that?” she queried, before answering herself.
“This question is for the occupation, I think,” she said, her hands gesturing with a lit cigarette between her fingers. “Will the occupation continue demolishing Palestinian homes? Do they plan to continue denying us our rights of national determination?”