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| Palestinian Wael Abu Reda, center, is seen in court in Beersheva, southern Israel, Wednesday, July 10, 2013. Israel has confirmed that a Gaza man who disappeared in Egypt last month is being detained for "security crimes." |
A Palestinian from the Gaza Strip who disappeared in Egypt last month
is being detained by Israel for "security crimes," an Israel court
confirmed Wednesday, a month after his family charged he was abducted.
The court partially lifted a gag order on the case, identifying the
man as Wael Abu Reda, but did not say how he was detained or how he
ended up in Israel. The man's wife, Iman, said she was traveling with
her husband when he received a phone call from someone asking him to
meet in Egypt's Sinai desert. "So he went," she said.
She said her husband was missing for eight days when his brother,
Mansour, received a call from an Israeli official saying he was in
Israel. The Sinai Peninsula is a lawless area bordering the Gaza Strip
where Islamic militants are active. She said her husband was not
connected to any armed groups.
"My husband does not belong to any faction, neither political nor military. Egypt holds all of the responsibility," she said.
Mansour Abu Reda said his brother traveled to Cairo seeking to obtain
Egyptian citizenship and to get medical treatment for his son. Gaza
residents often go abroad for medical services not available in Gaza. He
demanded answers from both Israel and Egypt.
"Israel is responsible for his life, and human rights groups must act
to secure his release," he said.
"We don't know why they took him, and
Egyptian security must tell us how they kidnapped him from Egypt."
In Israel, the Beersheba Magistrates Court on Wednesday extended for
10 days a blackout on details of the case, releasing only Abu Reda's
name and the fact that he was detained for "crimes against the security
of the country."
The case is reminiscent of another Palestinian from Gaza, Dirar Abu
Sisi, who vanished on a Ukrainian sleeper train in 2011 and later
surfaced in an Israeli prison. The details of his capture and transfer
remain unclear. Israel confirmed it was holding him only a month after
his disappearance.
Israel accuses Abu Sisi, an engineer, of masterminding the Hamas
rocket program and training gunmen in Gaza. He is charged with attempted
murder, conspiracy to commit murder and weapons production. He denies
the charges, saying he was a civilian engineer at Gaza's power plant.
Hamas is considered a terror group by Israel, the US and EU due to its
rocket attacks and suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.
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