Former lawmaker Hanin Zoabi was arrested at her home in Nazareth on Sunday on suspicion of membership in a terror group and incitement to terror, reportedly over a speech she delivered last October in which she appeared to justify Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel.
Zoabi’s detention prompted outrage from Arab lawmakers as well as the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, the leading umbrella organization representing the country’s Arab minority, which called it “political terrorism led by the settler government.”
Police confirmed arresting a woman meeting the 59-year-old Zoabi’s description after receiving complaints regarding her comments, saying in a statement that “after gathering evidence and checking with relevant figures, it was found that her comments carry suspicion of publicly identifying with a terror group and incitement to terror.”
Zoabi served as an MK on behalf of the Palestinian nationalist Balad party for a decade, starting in 2009, and is known for her fiery rhetoric and outspoken criticism of Israel.
Zoabi was a highly unpopular figure among many Jewish Israelis after she called for the dissolution of the State of Israel, labeled soldiers “murderers,” and sailed on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara in 2010 in a bid to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition
by email and never miss our top stories
By signing up, you agree to the terms
Police hauled her in for questioning after receiving necessary approvals, the force said on Sunday, indicating the Attorney General’s Office may have authorized the arrest.
In a speech in Vienna last October, ex-MK Zoabi said ‘you cannot differentiate between Hamas and the Palestinian people’ and that Oct. 7 attackers ‘entered their own land’ pic.twitter.com/Ylt0KVaFRe
— Sam Sokol (@SamuelSokol) September 21, 2025
“The Israel Police will take severe action against anyone who praises and identifies with terror groups and enemy states and encourages their acts in a time of war, online or anywhere else, for the sake of public security,” the police statement declared.
Addressing the Palestina Kongress in Vienna, Austria, last year, Zoabi appeared to express solidarity with Hamas and legitimize its actions on October 7, 2023, when the terror group breached the Gaza border and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped 251, while committing widespread atrocities and mass sexual assault.
The Palestinians had only two options, to die through genocide or be slowly suffocated by Israel, “and this is what we choose to resist,” she declared, arguing that “you cannot differentiate between Hamas and the Palestinian people.”
“Don’t tell me about October 7,” she added, noting that many in Gaza are descendants of Palestinian refugees and insisting that “on October 7, they didn’t enter Israeli borders, they entered their own land.”
Gazans celebrate by a destroyed Israeli tank at the broken Israel-Gaza border fence, east of Khan Younis, October 7, 2023. (AP/Yousef Masoud)
Among other subjects, Zoabi also talked about support for changing European attitudes to stop backing Israel due to the Holocaust, and the importance of drafting anti-Zionist Jews as part of that struggle.
“Within Europe, Israel is not a state. It is an idea. It is an ethical idea. Without this idea of defending the Jews, Germany cannot build its identity after the Second World War,” she said. “This is what makes it difficult for us.”
‘Political terrorism’
After the news broke on Sunday morning, Balad issued a statement condemning the arrest of its former lawmaker, calling it a “message of intimidation” targeting not only Zoabi but “all of our populace and national forces who insist on rejecting war crimes and Israelization.”
“This is a political move par excellence, that fits into the context of the systematic persecution of national-political activity and the blatant attack on freedom of expression and political organizing among the Arab populace,” the party statement read.
In a separate statement, Hadash, an Arab-majority leftist faction incorporating Israel’s old Communist Party, also condemned Zoabi’s arrest as “a cover for intimidation and political prosecutions,” and said this was taking place while the government itself is “crowded with elements with terrorist backgrounds” — an apparent reference to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has in the past been convicted for incitement to racism and supporting a terror organization.
MK Ayman Odeh speaks with activists at a protest calling for an end to the war in Gaza, and the return of the hostages, in Rosh Pina, northern Israel, on July 26, 2025.(Ayal Margolin/FLASH90)
Similarly, the High Follow-Up Committee decried Zoabi’s arrest as “political terrorism led by the settler government” and part of a “series of political prosecutions and intimidation to block our legitimate and normal political activity.”
Speaking with national broadcaster Kan, Zoabi’s attorney Hassan Jabarin questioned the legality of the arrest, insisting that for such an offense, which took place a year ago, she should have been summoned for questioning and not been the subject of a police raid.
“It is doubtful whether there was a judicial order in this matter,” he said.
A divisive lawmaker
Zoabi has a history of generating controversy, including through her participation in a Gaza-bound flotilla that in 2010 tried to break Israel’s blockade of the Strip and ended in a raid in which IDF commandos were met with violence when they boarded and, in the ensuing clash, nine Turkish activists were left dead and another died of his wounds later.
This led to the first of two attempts by the Central Elections Committee to disqualify her from running for reelection, both of which were subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court.
In July 2014, the committee banned her from Knesset for six months after she said that the kidnappers and killers of three Israeli teens were not terrorists, a statement welcomed by Hamas. The Supreme Court rejected her appeal to overturn the suspension.
MK Hanin Zoabi (c) and Parliament member Jamal Zahalka (L) at the High Court of Justice courtroom for Zoabi’s 2012 appeal against disqualification for upcoming elections due to her participation in the Turkish IHH flotilla (May 2010) aboard the Mavi Marmara. (photo credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90 )
In 2016, the Knesset passed a bill allowing 90 of the 120 lawmakers to remove colleagues who back armed struggle against Israel from office in response to a condolence visit paid by Zoabi and other Arab lawmakers to the families of Palestinians killed while attacking Israelis.
That bill was subsequently invoked as part of failed efforts to expel Hadash-Ta’al lawmakers Ayman Odeh and Ofer Cassif.
In May 2018, Zoabi was disciplined by the Knesset Ethics Committee, which slapped her with a one-week ban for accusing Israeli soldiers of “murdering” Palestinians.
In April 2018, Zoabi called for the State of Israel to be dissolved and replaced with either two states — one secular and one Palestinian — or one binational secular state.
The following year, after a decade of political life, she announced that she would not seek reelection. Two years later she was convicted on forgery and fraud charges related to financial irregularities in the Balad party.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.