Israel releases on bail US-Palestinian reporter accused of working for Iran

An Israeli court on Monday released on bail a Palestinian-American journalist detained for nearly two weeks on charges including working for Iran, her lawyer said.

An AFP journalist saw Naqaa Hamed, who has contributed to Iran's state-run Press TV, being released at a checkpoint near Jenin in the occupied West Bank.

Hamed's lawyer Khaled Mahajneh told AFP that an Israeli military court released her on bail of 8,000 shekels (about $2,600) and on condition she comply with future summons for questioning.

Mahajneh said that Hamed had spent "two weeks of detention under difficult conditions at Damon prison" in the northern Israeli city of Haifa.

The Israeli military arrested Hamed on September 15 at a checkpoint near Bethlehem as she was returning from a reporting assignment for Turkish broadcaster TRT, according to her family and a journalist who was accompanying her at the time.

Press TV reported on her arrest and release and described her as its West Bank correspondent.

Colleagues said Hamed, who holds US citizenship, had stopped working with Press TV about a month earlier and had become a freelance journalist.

The Israeli government considers Press TV to be a propaganda arm of Iran's cleric-run government, which Israel and the United States attacked in late February.

Mahajneh said the investigation into Hamed focused on "a clause concerning incitement against settlers and the Israeli army, a clause concerning contact with a foreign agent, and providing news and information to news agencies described as hostile under Israeli criteria".

"We tried to refute all the suspicions and charges they tried to pin on her by arguing that her work was purely journalistic, clear and legitimate," over four court hearings, Mahajneh said.

In recent months, Hamed had covered violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, particularly settlers' encirclement of homes in the town of Qusra near Nablus, one of which belongs to a Palestinian who holds US citizenship.

Her sister Fatima said at the time of her arrest that her coverage of the violence in Qusra had made her the target of a campaign from settlers aiming to push Israeli authorities to arrest her.

Israel is currently holding 36 journalists in its prisons, according to the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, an NGO working for prisoners' rights.