Israel bans Ahed Tamimi from travelling abroad

Israeli authorities banned Ahed Tamimi, a Palestinian activist and campaigner who became a resistance icon, and her family from travelling abroad, her father said on Friday.

Basim Tamimi told Anadolu Agency that he and his family had planned to travel to Europe via Jordan. But they were informed by Palestinian authorities that Israel had banned them from travelling abroad.

They had planned to leave Friday morning, he said, adding the authorities did not provide a reason for the ban.

They were due to participate in some events in which they would discuss the Palestinian resistance movement and the experience of being detained in Israel, Basim said.

Ahed's father told the Iranian-state Press TV that Israel barred his daughter's trip for fear that she would foil the Israeli regime's "schemes for the disintegration of the region by forging close relations with the enemies of Israel."

The ban comes nearly two months after Ahed was released from the Israeli prison where she served an eight-month sentence for slapping an Israeli soldier in her front yard in Nabi Saleh village in the occupied West Bank.

Her slap of the armed Israeli soldier was recorded and went viral on social media. It infuriated the Israeli public and politicians, who called for "shooting" Ahed, who was 17 years old then.

"In my opinion, she should have gotten a bullet, at least in the kneecap," said Bezalel Smotrich, a member of the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party, on Twitter in April. "That would have put her under house arrest for the rest of her life."

The 17-year-old was arrested last December was released on 29 July. The Israeli authorities also released Ahed's mother, Nariman, after both had served eight months behind bars.

In 2012, Istanbul’s Basaksehir Municipality granted al-Tamimi the prestigious Hanzala Courage Award for defying Israeli soldiers who had just arrested her brother.