Jerusalem District Police officers arrested Mohammad Azmi Hamouda al-Bakri, 31, on Tuesday this week in the Beit Hanina neighborhood of northern Jerusalem. Al-Bakri is a well-known sports figure in the eastern part of the city and one of the founders of street sports and parkour in East Jerusalem.
His renewed arrest, about two years after he was released from a previous period of administrative detention, has once again sparked interest on social media in East Jerusalem around the complex figure who combines acrobatics, youth mentoring and a lengthy record of security-related activity.
Who is Mohammad al-Bakri, and how did he become a parkour pioneer in East Jerusalem?
Al-Bakri first gained widespread media exposure in the middle of the previous decade. As a talented young man, he became one of the pioneers of street sports and parkour in East Jerusalem, using the unique architecture of the Old City’s alleyways and walls to perform complex acrobatic exercises.
Al-Bakri also served as a mentor to dozens of teenagers in the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem and was portrayed by Arab media outlets and on social media as a promising athlete navigating between the difficulties of life in East Jerusalem and his aspirations for sporting excellence.
However, alongside his community and sporting activity, al-Bakri developed a prolonged history of confrontations with the security forces. In November 2014, when he was 19, he was arrested by security forces during the wave of disturbances known as the “Lone-Wolf Intifada.” The Jerusalem District Court convicted him of serious offenses including rioting, conspiracy to commit a crime, stone throwing, and manufacturing and throwing Molotov cocktails at Border Police and police forces during violent clashes in Beit Hanina.
Following the conviction, he was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. During his time behind bars, al-Bakri continued to attract public attention in East Jerusalem. He completed the Palestinian matriculation examinations, known as the Tawjihi, with distinction and was also honored after memorizing the entire Quran, despite the difficult conditions in prison.
After his release in 2021, al-Bakri returned to his sporting activity. However, in September 2023, on the eve of his wedding, he was arrested again, this time under an administrative detention order that was extended several times during the “Swords of Iron” war. He was eventually released in May 2024 under restrictive conditions that prohibited release celebrations or the display of flags and posters in his honor.
This week, police forces once again arrived at his home in Beit Hanina and arrested him. According to initial assessments, the current arrest is defined as preventive detention or is linked to suspicion of a new offense, as part of intensified enforcement by the security establishment against released security prisoners in the Jerusalem area.
