In recent days, Jerusalem District Police Commander Maj. Gen. Avshalom Peled signed a new administrative order barring Ereen al-Zaanin (Zaanini) from the Temple Mount for four months. It is the latest in a seemingly endless series of bans, arrests and restrictions imposed on the Palestinian activist from East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many residents of the capital, and certainly members of the security forces, are very familiar with the name Ereen al-Zaanin. To them, the 31-year-old from the Wadi Joz neighborhood is one of the main figures driving unrest among Fatah circles in the Old City. The latest exclusion order marks another chapter in the prolonged struggle between the security establishment and a man identified as one of the focal points of agitation among Jerusalem\u2019s \u201cShabiba,\u201d the Fatah youth movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Al-Zaanin first came to widespread public attention in Israel in June 2020. It was just days after the tragic shooting of Iyad al-Hallaq, a young Palestinian man on the autism spectrum who was mistakenly suspected of being a terrorist, when former Knesset member Yehuda Glick arrived in Wadi Joz to offer condolences to the grieving family. Al-Zaanin, together with his associates, led a violent and brutal assault on Glick. They threw the former lawmaker down dozens of steps, kicked him in the head and body, and chased him while shouting abuse. Al-Zaanin\u2019s arrest, carried out by police officers wearing special protective suits because he was in COVID-19 isolation at the time, went viral. He was sentenced to five months in prison and was later ordered to pay Glick tens of thousands of shekels in a civil lawsuit pursued against him by the Honenu organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His release from prison, however, did not mark the end of his activity. On the contrary, the security establishment identifies al-Zaanin as a charismatic field activist who uses civilian and humanitarian initiatives as cover for political and hostile activity. Among other things, he operates on the Temple Mount as a \u201cvolunteer medic\u201d on behalf of the Red Crescent and provides \u201cfirst aid\u201d as part of local emergency teams. Among Palestinians, he is portrayed as someone who gives medical assistance to people injured in confrontations. Security officials, however, view the role as one that allows him to remain at the most sensitive flashpoints, wear a uniform, carry a radio and move freely while taking advantage of his medical status. At the same time, he insisted on serving as a \u201cmusaharati,\u201d waking residents for the Ramadan fast in Wadi Joz, another initiative from which he was barred over disturbances to public order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In recent years, al-Zaanin has become a frequent target of administrative orders. He has been arrested repeatedly and even led a protest by administrative detainees, becoming the first to boycott hearings in Israeli courts. The defense minister, as well as the Jerusalem District commander, have signed a series of prolonged administrative detention orders, exclusion orders and restrictions against him, based on the assessment that his presence on the ground constitutes a powder keg, particularly around the Temple Mount.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In recent days, Jerusalem District Police Commander Maj. Gen. Avshalom Peled signed a new administrative order barring Ereen al-Zaanin (Zaanini) from the Temple Mount for four months. It is the latest in a seemingly endless series of bans, arrests and restrictions imposed on the Palestinian activist from East Jerusalem. Many residents of the capital, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":183364,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"9320","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,184,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-183363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-184","category-68"],"acf":{"subtitle":"Ereen al-Zaanin, a volunteer medic with the Red Crescent, has again been barred from the Temple Mount after years of arrests, orders and confrontations in Jerusalem"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}