Bushra al-Tawil, a 33-year-old Palestinian journalist and activist from Al-Bireh, near Ramallah, is one of the most unusual and influential figures among security prisoners associated with Hamas, particularly because of her extremist statements and the incitement campaigns she conducted concerning security prisoners, Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Al-Tawil holds a unique distinction: she is the only female security prisoner to have been released in two separate prisoner exchange deals – first as part of the Gilad Shalit exchange in 2011, and again during the prisoner exchanges conducted amid the “Swords of Iron” war in 2024. However, her freedom did not last long. Less than a year after her most recent release, she was arrested again and has since been held in prolonged and exceptional administrative detention, which is periodically extended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Al-Tawil’s ideological development was no coincidence. She is the daughter of Jamal al-Tawil, a senior Hamas leader in the West Bank, a former mayor of Al-Bireh, and a man who himself spent many years in Israeli prisons for terrorist activities and organizing riots. Under his patronage, Bushra turned her journalistic work into a propaganda weapon. She works for the “Anin al-Qayd” (“Prisoner’s Groan”) news agency. On this platform, she frequently published content, posters and reports glorifying attacks and terrorists, comparing the suffering of imprisoned militants to the alleged “desecration” of Al-Aqsa Mosque, alongside videos portraying armed struggle as the only means of defending Jerusalem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The driving force behind al-Tawil’s activities, which has repeatedly formed the basis of indictments and intelligence material against her, is her cynical exploitation of Jerusalem. Al-Tawil has consistently addressed this issue both in writing and in public statements. She organized social media campaigns calling for “ribat” (steadfast and determined resistance) and agitation at the Temple Mount, and delivered lectures and speeches in mosques directly linking the release of prisoners to the “liberation of Jerusalem from occupation.” For Israeli security authorities, her statements do not constitute freedom of expression but dangerous nationalist-religious propaganda that inflames tensions among Palestinians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israeli security authorities regard al-Tawil as a major instigator of unrest and a powerful source of incitement. Consequently, she has frequently found herself behind bars. Recently, Palestinian media outlets and prisoner organizations have reported that al-Tawil is being held in solitary confinement – initially at the Damon and Neve Tirza women’s prisons, and for approximately 50 days under harsh isolation conditions at Ohaley Oz Prison in Beersheba, a facility designated exclusively for men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her transfer to this facility reportedly stems from the Israel Prison Service’s (IPS) concern that her charisma could enable her to lead riots and hunger strikes in women’s prisons, alongside a nationwide shortage of maximum-security segregation cells in women’s facilities. She is, of course, held in an individual segregation cell, completely isolated from any physical or visual contact with male prisoners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, locked behind bars in a men’s prison, her incitement efforts continue to resonate across Arabic-language social media, where she is portrayed as a symbol of sacrifice and determination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bushra al-Tawil, a 33-year-old Palestinian journalist and activist from Al-Bireh, near Ramallah, is one of the most unusual and influential figures among security prisoners associated with Hamas, particularly because of her extremist statements and the incitement campaigns she conducted concerning security prisoners, Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque. Al-Tawil holds a unique distinction: she is the only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":186231,"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":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,184,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-184","category-68"],"acf":{"subtitle":"Bushra al-Tawil, a Palestinian journalist associated with Hamas, made Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa central to her activism. She is now reportedly held in solitary confinement in a men's prison"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186230","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=186230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186233,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186230\/revisions\/186233"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jerusalem-online.co.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}