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Family, U.S. seek information from Israel on detained Palestinian-American Samaher Esmail for alleged incitement
A Palestinian-American woman was pulled out of bed in her family’s home in the West Bank and arrested earlier this week. Now her family in the U.S. and the Biden administration are seeking information about her case.
Israel’s military says Samaher Esmail, 46, of Gretna, Louisiana, was arrested for “incitement on social media.”
Her son, who is in Louisiana, told CBS News on Wednesday that IDF soldiers forced their way into the family home in the town of Silwad, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, late Monday and took her. The son said he has not heard from her since.
Photo provided by Samaher Esmail’s family
A video posted to social media by her son shows what the family said were armored IDF vehicles outside their home in the West Bank. Pictures and videos shared with CBS News show the aftermath of Esmail’s arrest, which left windows broken and belongings strewn across a bedroom.
“They took her out without her hijab, her headscarf,” Samaher’s son Ibrahim Hamed told CBS News. “It’s like they didn’t even respect her.”
The IDF told CBS News in a statement on Wednesday that Esmail was arrested for “incitement on social media” and that she had been “transferred to the security forces for further questioning.” They said she was being held by Israeli police, not the military.
Image provided by Samaher Esmail’s family
Some of Esmail’s posts on social media reference Hamas. Her son Hamed said his mother’s social media posts simply call for “an end to the occupation” and do not support Hamas specifically.
“A lot of Palestinians don’t support Hamas, they want to end the occupation. It’s not promoting violence to say, ‘We are strong, we’re going to go past this occupation, ‘” Hamed added.
The IDF said it could not provide any further information on the social media activity that led to her arrest.
Esmail’s sister, Sana Esmail, told CBS News in the West Bank that she was deeply concerned because Esmail has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and needs medication.
The U.S. State Department said Wednesday that it was aware of reports of an American national being arrested in the West Bank and that it was seeking additional information and stood ready “to provide all appropriate consular assistance.”
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As they seek further information about her whereabouts, Esmail’s family has called on the U.S. government to do whatever it can to guarantee her safety.
“We don’t know what prison she’s in,” Hamed told CBS News. “We don’t know that much. A lot of [the information] is hearsay.”
Lawyers and human rights organizations in Israel have been sounding alarm bells since shortly after the start of Israel’s operations against Hamas in Gaza over what they describe as an erosion of free speech in the country and in the occupied West Bank.
Esmail is from the same town in Louisiana as a Palestinian-American teenager, Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, who was recently killed by Israeli fire in a village near Silwad. The State Department has said it was “devastated” by the killing of 17-year-old Jabbar in the West Bank on Jan. 19.
“We continue to engage urgently with the Government of Israel surrounding the nature of Mr. Jabbar’s death, which was alarming,” a State Department spokesperson told CBS News. “We understand the Israeli government is currently investigating the incident. We urge that it be conducted expeditiously and are eager to see the findings as soon as possible, including any appropriate accountability measures that will be taken.”
Photo provided by Samaher Esmail’s family
Israeli police confirmed to CBS News that it was investigating the killing, which it said involved a report of a “concerning firearm discharge, ostensibly involving an off-duty law enforcement officer, a soldier, and a civilian. This discharge was directed towards a perceived threat, individuals purportedly engaged in rock-throwing activities along Highway 60.”
The police said “additional information indicated the potential fatality of a 17-year-old Palestinian due to gunfire.”
No findings from the police investigation had been released as of Wednesday evening in Israel.
Meanwhile, Esmail’s family also remains desperate for more information. “We’ve been fighting our whole lives,” Hamed said. “Where is the humanity?”
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Sen. Thom Tillis says “the scope” of Helene damage in North Carolina “is more like Katrina”
As recovery missions and repairs continue in North Carolina more than a week after Hurricane Helene carved a path of devastation through the western part of the state, the state’s Republican Sen. Thom Tillis called for more resources to bolster the relief effort and likened the damage to Hurricane Katrina’s mark on Louisiana in 2005.
“This is unlike anything that we’ve seen in this state,” Tillis told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday morning. “We need increased attention. We need to continue to increase the surge of federal resources.”
Hurricane Helene ripped through the Southeast U.S. after making landfall in Florida on Sept. 26 as a powerful Category 4 storm. Helene brought heavy rain and catastrophic flooding to communities across multiple states, including Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, with North Carolina bearing the brunt of the destruction. Officials previously said hundreds of roads in western North Carolina were washed out and inaccessible after the storm, hampering rescue operations, and several highways were blocked by mudslides.
Tillis said Sunday that most roads in the region likely remained closed due to flooding and debris. Water, electricity and other essential services still have not been fully restored.
“The scope of this storm is more like Katrina,” he said. “It may look like a flood to the outside observer, but again, this is a landmass roughly the size of the state of Massachusetts, with damage distributed throughout. We have to get maximum resources on the ground immediately to finish rescue operations.”
Hurricane Katrina left more than 1,000 people dead after it slammed into Louisiana’s Gulf Coast in August 2005, flooding neighborhoods and destroying infrastructure in and around New Orleans as well as in parts of the surrounding region. It was the deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland U.S. in the last 50 years, and the costliest storm on record.
The death toll from Hurricane Helene is at least 229, CBS News has confirmed, with at least 116 of those deaths reported in North Carolina alone. Officials have said they expect the death toll to continue to rise as recovery efforts were ongoing, and a spokesperson for the police department in Asheville told CBS News Friday their officers were “actively working 75 cases of missing persons.”
On Saturday, the U.S. Department of Transportation released $100 million in emergency funds for North Carolina to rebuild the roads and bridges damaged by the hurricane.
“We are providing this initial round of funding so there’s no delay getting roads repaired and reopened, and re-establishing critical routes,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. “The Biden-Harris administration will be with North Carolina every step of the way, and today’s emergency funding to help get transportation networks back up and running safely will be followed by additional federal resources.”
President Biden previously announced that the federal government would cover “100%” of costs for debris removal and emergency protective measures in North Carolina for six months.
With North Carolina leaders working with a number of relief agencies to deal with the aftermath of the storm, Tillis urged federal officials to ramp up the resources being funneled into the state’s hardest-hit areas. The senator also addressed a surge in conspiracy theories and misinformation about the Biden Administration’s disaster response, which have been fueled by Republican political figures like former President Donald Trump.
Trump falsely claimed that Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent in the November presidential election, were diverting funds from Federal Emergency Management Agency that would support the relief effort in North Carolina toward initiatives for immigrants. He also said baselessly that the administration and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, were withholding funds because many communities that were hit hardest are predominantly Republican. Elon Musk has shared false claims about FEMA, too.
“Many of these observations are not even from people on the ground,” Tillis said of those claims. “I believe that we have to stay focused on rescue operations, recovery operations, clearing operations, and we don’t need any of these distractions on the ground. It’s at the expense of the hard-working first responders and people that are just trying to recover their lives.”
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