Jordan Targeting Gaza Solidarity in Largest Arrest Campaign in Decades

Date: 16 July 2025 - 22:06

News ID: ۱۴۱۴۷۰

AMMAN (Dispatches) – Over the past two months, Jordan’s intelligence agency has detained and interrogated hundreds of people who have shown solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, in what is the largest arrest campaign to have taken place in the kingdom in decades.
According to information obtained by Middle East Eye from multiple sources in Jordan, a widespread campaign led by the General Intelligence Department (GID) is targeting activists and anyone who has sent financial donations or other kinds of support to the victims of the Zionist regime’s war on Gaza.
One detainee, who spoke to MEE on condition of anonymity, said: “The investigation was done purely for the sake of Israel. Jordan had nothing to do with it.”
A Jordanian political source, who also requested anonymity for security reasons, said that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were two other forces driving the arrest campaign, with Jordan hoping to get financial aid from Riyadh and Abu Dhabi in return.
Those targeted are being arrested and interrogated without legal charges being brought against them.
According to multiple detainees, most of arrested are interrogated and then released without anyone knowing what has happened to them.
Intelligence officers have, the sources said, threatened those they arrest and told them not to say anything about what has happened to them. They are told that if they do reveal anything, they will be re-arrested.
According to those arrested who spoke to MEE, the intelligence officers also told them not to say that their disappearance was due to their arrest.
Aside from the hundreds of people who have been arrested, others are told to voluntarily report for interrogation in daylight hours. At the end of the day, they are told to report back again the next day, with the process often continuing for several days.
According to multiple sources, most, if not all, of the detainees were interrogated about their solidarity with Gaza. The investigations focused on sending donations, financial support or in-kind aid to the war’s victims in the Palestinian enclave.
An arrest campaign of this size has not occurred in Jordan since the “democratic transition” of 1989, when King Hussein ended the state of emergency, which the government had used as a pretext for committing human rights violations, including extrajudicial arrests.