Amman recalls ambassador as ‘first step’ over Israel’s detention of Jordanians

“Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it was checking the Jordanian announcement with authorities in Amman,” reported Haaretz.

By World Israel News Staff

Jordan is recalling its top envoy posted in Israel “for consultation” to protest the Israeli “refusal” to release two Jordanian nationals who have been “illegally detained,” according to a statement released by the kingdom’s foreign minister, who warned that it was just “a first step.”

“In light of Israeli government refusal to heed our legitimate demands for releasing Jordanian citizens Hiba Labadi & Abdul Rahman Miri who have been illegally detained without charges for months, we decided to recall our ambassador in Tel Aviv for consultation as a first step,” tweeted Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on Tuesday night.

“We hold [the] Israeli government responsible for the lives of our citizens whose health conditions have severely deteriorated in illegal arbitrary detention. We will take all necessary legal & diplomatic measures to ensure their safe return home. Administrative detention is illegal,” the foreign minister wrote.

“Israel’s Foreign Ministry said it was checking the Jordanian announcement with authorities in Amman,” reported Haaretz.

Ironically, the Israeli Embassy in Amman was closed on Wednesday for a totally unrelated reason.

“Due to the Israeli Finance Ministry‘s breaching of longstanding agreements with [Foreign Ministry] employees, we are forced to close Israeli missions around the world as of today, October 30,” the Foreign Ministry tweeted on Wednesday.

“We hope that this crisis will be promptly resolved,” the ministry said, referring to the internal labor dispute.

“Israel detained Heba al-Labadi on August 20 and Abdul Rahman Miri on September 2 as they entered [Judea and Samaria] from Jordan,” said Haaretz on Wednesday.

“Both are being held in administrative detention, an Israeli policy that allows the open-ended detentions of people suspected of security offenses without filing charges,” the newspaper reports.

Al-Labadi was released from Bnei Zion Hospital in Haifa on Tuesday. She had been admitted after going on a month-long hunger strike to protest her detainment.

Al-Labadi has posted on social media in support for Hezbollah and violence against Jews in Judea and Samaria, Israeli media reports. Israel internal security service, the Shin Bet, says she was arrested under “severe security circumstances.”

Last Saturday, October 26, marked the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty.

“This peace has since enhanced security & prosperity for our peoples,” said the Israeli Foreign Ministry on Sunday.

However, “Jordan will not celebrate…the historic peace agreement with Israel,” wrote former MK Ksenia Svetlova in an opinion piece in The Jerusalem Post.

“The winds of reconciliation that blew at the time, the dreams, have long since dissipated. Most people in Amman do not feel there is anything to celebrate, and those who do believe in the agreement and in the vitality of the Kingdom prefer to downplay their emotions,” says Svetlova, who was an Israeli parliamentarian from 2015 until earlier this year as well as a member of the Knesset Subcommittee for Foreign Policy.

Last October, Jordan announced its withdrawal from part of the 1994 peace agreement with Israel, saying the agricultural areas of Naharayim and Zofar in the Jordan Valley, cultivated by Israeli farmers over the past 25 years, will be reclaimed by the kingdom.