A Palestinian woman who arrived in Australia from Gaza has been detained by immigration authorities after a pre-dawn raid in Sydney.
Maha Almassri, 61, was woken by about 15 Australian Border Force officers at her son’s home in western Sydney at about 5.30am on Thursday, her cousin Mohammed Almassri told Guardian Australia.
Mohammed Almassri, who was not at the scene and was informed about the raid by his relatives, said more officers were positioned outside the house.
Maha Almassri left Gaza via Rafah in February 2024 and entered Australia on a tourist visa a short time later, Mohammed said. She has been living with her son since.
On Thursday, she was told she had failed a visa character check and was taken to Bankstown police station and then transferred to Villawood detention centre, Mohammed said.
In a document seen by Guardian Australia, Almassri was told her visa had been cancelled “personally” by the assistant minister for citizenship and cultural affairs and that the minister “reasonably suspects that the person does not pass the character test” and was “satisfied that the cancellation was in the national interest”.
According to the Migration Act, a person does not pass the character test if they have been assessed by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) to be a direct or indirect risk to security.
A separate document seen by the Guardian suggested Almassri was granted a bridging visa in June last year after applying for a protection visa.
The grandmother has more than 100 Australian relatives living across the country, Mohammed said. His Australian children were evacuated from Rafah in March last year.
He said security checks were made on her by both Australian and Israeli authorities before she was granted a visa and cleared to leave Gaza, and that her age made her an unlikely threat to Australian national security.
“She’s an old lady, what can she do?” he said. “What’s the reason? They have to let us know why this has happened. There is no country, no house, nothing [to go back to in Gaza].”
He said his cousin was in poor health and frightened.
“She was sleeping [when the raid happened]. She couldn’t walk, she was so scared.”
He said he tried to talk over the phone to Maha in Villawood on Thursday afternoon but she was unable to speak through tears.
Tony Burke, the minister for home affairs, said the government “will not be commenting on this cancellation”.
“Any information in the public domain is being supplied by the individual and is not necessarily consistent with the information supplied by our intelligence and security agencies,” he said.
“Our security checks never stop and this cancellation is proof the system is working.”
A spokesperson from the Department for Home Affairs said it did not comment on individual cases due to privacy, but that the government would “continue to act decisively to protect the community from the risk of harm posed by individuals … including visa cancellation or refusal where appropriate”.
The Refugee Advice and Casework Service, which is representing Maha, said it had “nothing to comment on at this time”.
Alison Battisson, a human rights lawyer, said it was “very common” for people to be woken up early in the morning with no warning and be taken to a police station, then into detention.
She said individuals could only be detained if there were reasonable prospects of their removal from Australia in the reasonably foreseeable future. Battisson questioned where a Palestinian from Gaza would return to if forced to leave Australia.
“It’s a Palestinian grandma. I’d be very interested to understand the decision-making process behind it,” she said.
