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🇺🇸 🇵🇸 Sama Safi, a 20-year-old American citizen and honors psychology student at Birzeit University, remains in Israeli detention after soldiers seized her from her family’s home near Ramallah at 3 a.m. on June 2, with lawmakers warning her life is at risk.
Safi, whose family lives in Florida, was taken without charge and transferred to Ofer prison, then to the Moscovia interrogation center in Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society. Her family says she has a chronic condition that causes fevers up to 105°F and requires daily medication and a quarterly injection she travels abroad to receive.
She was one of five Palestinian women detained that week, including two members of the Palestinian women’s national football team. The Israeli military said the women were suspected of “promoting terrorist activities.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Sen. Chris Van Hollen have both demanded her release. “I am really sick and tired of the Israeli government taking American taxpayer dollars and then mistreating Americans,” Van Hollen said. Israel has not told her family or the U.S. embassy where she is being held. Rep. Tlaib said, “Her life is at risk—our government must free her now!”