Israeli woman arrested in Germany for condemning Gaza genocide

On Nov 13, 2023

BERLIN, GERMANY - OCTOBER 18: Protester talks to the police during a demonstration demanding a peaceful resolution to the current conflict in Israel and Gaza under the slogan "Not in my name!" outside the Foreign Ministry on October 18, 2023 in Berlin, Germany. The current conflict between Hamas and Israel is continuing to claim lives daily, especially since yesterday's bombing of a hospital in Gaza that reportedly left hundreds dead. An Israeli invasion of Gaza is possibly imminent. (Photo by Maja Hitij/Getty Images)

RELIGIONS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – German police temporarily detained a Jewish Israeli woman who held up a sign condemning Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

This is while crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices in the country in increased.

In a video circulating online, a Jewish woman in the German capital Berlin was seen demonstrating alone in the city’s district of Neukölln last month.

The sign the woman holding said “As a Jew and Israeli: stop the genocide in Gaza”. She was then stopped by police officers and led to a police van, where she was questioned before later being released.

The woman was later identified as Iris Hefets, a certified psychoanalyst from Israel who moved to Germany in 2002 and is on the board of the Jewish Voice for Just Peace in the Middle East (EJJP).

In a recent interview with the DiEM25 (Democracy in Europe Movement 2025) outlet, Hefets stated that by demonstrating alone, “I wanted to show that not all Jews think the same, like the German government would like to portray”.

Over the past few years, German authorities throughout the country’s federal system have been cracking down on pro-Palestinian demonstrations and protests on the basis that it has a “special responsibility” towards protecting the Jews through preventing criticism against Israel.

That position has only hardened and increased in recent weeks, following the Palestinian resistance group Hamas’s operation into Israel and the occupation military’s subsequent bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip.