Susan Abu Ghannam, the mother of Mohammed Abu Ghannam, the Palestinian youth killed by Israeli occupation forces just over one year ago on 21 July 2017, was indicted in Israeli court in Jerusalem on Monday, 13 August. She was accused of making political posts on Facebook.. Her detention was extended until 13 September 2018, as Israeli occupation prosecutors listed 40 times that she posted on social media about politics.
She was seized from her home on 5 August by Israeli occupation forces, who invaded her home, confiscating cell phones and other electronics.Her son, Mohammed was killed by occupation forces as he joined in Jerusalem protests against the imposition of electronic gates outside Al-Aqsa Mosque.
After shooting him dead, Israeli occupation forces attempted to steal the body of Mohammed Abu Ghannam from Makassed hospital in Jerusalem. The Israeli occupation continues to hold the bodies of slain Palestinians hostage in an attempt to suppress Palestinian resistance as a general policy; while Palestinian families are struggling for the release of the bodies, Israeli high courts have upheld the occupation’s policy of holding them hostage.
In order to prevent occupation forces from seizing the body, his family and friends wrapped Mohammed in a sheet after he passed away, carried his body and passed it up over the hospital’s surrounding wall, several meters high. It was carried from there to the cemetery of al-Tur village; on the way, the car was stopped by police. While the occupation attempted to impose a rule of only seven people at the burial, hundreds joined in the funeral procession.
They acted just in time as dozens of military-armed Border Patrol swarmed the hospital, invading the area, forcing people donating blood to leave the hospital before they terrorized the crowds in the hospital’s courtyards by throwing stun grenades and tear-gas canisters at them.
The policy of the confiscation of bodies is, according to Gideon Levy, the brainchild of Gilad Erdan, the same Israeli minister charged with the global anti-BDS mandate and the creator of the “BDS Hate List” of international organizations in support of Palestine, including Samidoun and many others around the world.
The arrest of Susan Abu Ghannam is only the latest incident of Israeli harassment of the family; earlier, her husband, Mohammed’s father, Hassan Abu Ghannam, 47, was arrested days after Mohammed’s funeral.
