In the latest episode of government agencies doing what they do best, Israeli security forces rolled out a pre-dawn raid in Ramallah on Sunday to lock up 71-year-old Dr. Mazen Al-Rantisi. Known to locals as the "doctor of the poor" for the crime of handing out free meds and waiving fees, Al-Rantisi was dragged out of his home in the al-Tira neighborhood and hauled off to a police station in the Ma’ale Adumim settlement. He is currently hanging out with the Special Investigations Unit, which is apparently very eager to interrogate a senior citizen.

Naturally, the bureaucratic state has been completely transparent about why they grabbed an elderly doctor. Just kidding. When asked by reporters where Al-Rantisi is and what he actually did, the Israeli military immediately referred all questions to the Israel Prison Service. The Prison Service, showing elite defensive skills, immediately referred all questions right back to the military. It is a classic display of administrative hot potato that would make any government bureaucrat proud.

According to the Israeli paper Haaretz, the actual target here is Al-Rantisi’s gig as the head of the Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC). Founded back in 1985, the UHWC operates medical clinics for thousands of rural patients who do not have easy access to healthcare. But because the state loves a paper trail, the Israeli military declared the organization an "unlawful association" in 2020. Their legal justification? Emergency regulations dating all the way back to the 1945 British Mandate.

Yes, you read that correctly. To shut down a clinic network in the 2020s, the state dusted off eighty-year-old colonial rules left behind by the British Empire. In 2022, they even went so far as to board up the group's headquarters in Al-Bireh. Meanwhile, showing the absolute peak of bureaucratic comedy, the UHWC is still fully and legally registered as a legitimate non-profit with the Palestinian Authority’s interior ministry. One government says you're a legal charity; the other says you're an illegal gang under British King George VI’s old rules.

Needless to say, the internet is not thrilled. A massive online campaign has kicked off under the hashtag #FreedomForDrMazenAlRantisi, with local leaders and former patients pointing out that the dangerous criminal in question spent his days giving away medicine to families who could not afford to eat, let alone pay a doctor. For decades, his clinic was essentially a refuge for the poorest people in the West Bank.