Germany's ambassador condemns raid on Palestinian bookstore

Germany's ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, has joined diplomats and journalists in condemning a raid by Israeli police on a long-established Palestinian-owned bookstore in east Jerusalem.

As part of the raid on two branches of the "Educational Bookshop," owners Ahmed and Mahmoud Muna were detained due to allegations of "violating public order."

"I, like many diplomats, enjoy browsing for books at Educational Bookshop," Seibert said in a post on his X account, labeling the Muna family as "peace-loving proud Palestinian Jerusalemites, open for discussion and intellectual exchange."

According to May Muna, Mahmoud's wife, police confiscated hundreds of titles before ordering the store's closure, adding the Israeli police picked out books with Palestinian titles or flags "without knowing what any of them meant."

May Muna said the soldiers used Google Translate to understand some of the Arabic titles.

An Israeli police statement said Ahmed and Mahmoud Muna were arrested on suspicion of "selling books containing ... support for terrorism."

UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese also condemned the raid on X. 

"Shocked by Israeli forces' raid on East Jerusalem's Educational Bookshop — an intellectual lighthouse and family-run gem resisting Palestinian erasure under apartheid," she wrote.

"Internationals in Jerusalem: please show up, stand with the Muna family, and protect this vital hub," she added.

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Established more than 40 years ago, the shop is known as a hub of intellectual life in east Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967 and annexed to its capital in a move not recognized internationally.

The three-story bookstore has a large selection of books, mainly in Arabic and English, about the conflict and the wider Middle East, including many by Israeli and Jewish authors.

Edited by: Wesley Rahn