This is the start of a new battle, Salah Hammouri tells The New Arab after his deportation by Israel from Palestine

The Palestinian-French human rights lawyer Salah Hammouri has said that he “will continue the struggle for the right of returning to Jerusalem”, after being deported to France by Israeli authorities.

Hammouri made his remarks to The New Arab, shortly after arriving in Paris Sunday, where he was welcomed by dozens of friends and supporters, in addition to his wife and children who had been banned from reuniting with him in Jerusalem since 2016.

The human rights lawyer’s expulsion concluded a long legal battle in Israeli courts that started in October 2021 when Israeli authorities revoked his residency rights in his home city of Jerusalem.

#Israel’s decision to deport French-Palestinian human rights defender and lawyer Salah Hammouri to France against his will may constitute a war crime under the Geneva Convention – UN experts: https://t.co/hK39NuxjII pic.twitter.com/3mYxkhujqL

— UN Special Procedures (@UN_SPExperts) December 2, 2022

“Salah won this battle because Israeli authorities were forced to expel him after trying for twenty years to force him to leave on his own '', his wife, Elsa Lefort, told The New Arab.

“His continuous arrests, his residency revocation and splitting him apart from us, his family, was all intended to make him give up his right to stay in Jerusalem and leave”, Lefort remarked. “The struggle for his and our right to return will continue”, she added.

Hammouri had served a seven-years-sentence in Israeli jails for activism during the second Intifada, and was released in 2012. He obtained his Masters's degree in law and began to work representing Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Around the same time, Hammouri married Elsa Lefort, a French national.

Hammouri was arrested multiple times under administrative detention orders, without charge. His family was banned from entering the country in 2016, before he was stripped of his residency rights in Jerusalem in October.

"Our journey together has just begun ... Palestine is our cause... and we stand by our cause to ensure that our next generation does not suffer what we suffer"

- Human Rights Defender, Salah Hammouri#justiceforsalah #liberezsalah pic.twitter.com/8yiq0EdlDu

— JusticeforSalah (@JusticeforSalah) December 18, 2022

Last March, Hammouri was arrested again, after a months-long compulsory residence in Kufr Aqab, north of Jerusalem, that his wife described as "completely isolated from his professional, social and family".

During his last detention, Hammouri filed a complaint before French courts against the Israeli NSO group, after his phone was reportedly hacked with NSO’s Pegasus spyware on French soil. He also addressed a letter to French president Emanuel Macron on Bastille day.

"Today I am in a Bastille called "Ofer" in the occupied Palestinian Territory, being held for a third time under "administrative detention"," read Hammouri's letter in reference to the famed French prison associated with the French Revolution. "I and my fellow prisoners are subject to military courts similar to those that sentenced General De Gaulle to execution and citizenship revocation." Israeli authorities moved Hammouri to a high security prison following his letter to Macron.

In May, Hammouri also addressed a letter to the ICC urging it to accelerate the investigation of Israeli crimes.

“I was informed that I was going to be expelled in the morning around 11:30 pm”, Hammouri told The New Arab. “I was hadcuffed during the entire trip to Paris, I’m still trying to process everything that happened”.

“This is the end of a battle, but the struggle will continue”, stressed Hammouri. “We Palestine is not a mere geography for us”, he said. “We Palestinians carry our country with us wherever we go, and continue to fight for it”, he added.

Hammouri wrote a letter from prison prior to his deportation published by The New Arab last week.