Israel detains Palestine international women’s football player

Rand Halawani’s detention also saw four other women arrested on Tuesday, including a former Palestine player.Israeli authorities have extended the detention of a player on the Palestinian women’s national football team after she was summoned for questioning in Jerusalem, Palestinian officials have reported.The Palestinian Football Association (PFA) denounced the prolonged detention of 20-year-old Rand Halawani, who was arrested on Tuesday evening.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4World Cup contenders: Are Morocco ready to go all the way this time?list 2 of 4Messi trains alone as Argentina hold first World Cup practicelist 3 of 4US artist sues FIFA over destruction of Dallas whale mural for World Cuplist 4 of 4‘We aren’t the big favourites,’ Brazil’s Casemiro saysend of listIn a statement, it said Halawani’s arrest and that of a former national team player was “not an isolated incident, it is part of a well-documented pattern of systematic targeting of Palestinian athletes, which continues without accountability”.According to the Palestinian governorate for Jerusalem, an Israeli court on Wednesday extended Halawani’s detention until Friday.Israel’s military also arrested former national football player Natalie Abu Diyeh, a student at Birzeit University, as well as three other young Palestinian women in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday.The military said in a statement that the four women were suspected of “promoting terrorist activities and additional terrorist-related activities”.Birzeit University denounced the arrests as part of Israel’s “systematic policies targeting Palestinian education and students’ right to continue their academic journey”.Bishop Imad Haddad of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, to which Natalie Abu Diyeh belonged, called for her release.“We are deeply shocked and horrified by this news, as well as by the news that her family does not yet know where she has been taken”, Haddad said in a statement on Tuesday.