The Archbishop of Canterbury has expressed his "lament" at Israel’s decision to extend the detention of a Christian Palestinian woman without charges.

23-year-old Layan Nasir was forcibly taken from her home in the West Bank by Israeli forces in April and detained without any formal charges or explanation to her friends and family.

Nasir, a member of St Peter's Anglican Church in Birzeit, represents one of thousands of people under Israeli administrative detention.

The Most Rev. Justin Welby has called for her release, after an Israeli military court ruled yesterday to extend her administrative detention by an additional four months.

The Archbishop has condemned Israel’s extensive use of administrative detention for Palestinians as a “deeply discriminatory” practice that “cannot be legally or morally justified.” 

Welby argues that Nasir is being held on classified evidence that leaves her facing “unknown allegations with no way to disapprove them.”

"This is an egregious state of affairs, as is the fact that her transfer outside the West Bank to Damon Prison is in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention,” a statement from the Archbishop reads.

“I ask the Israeli Government to look again at her case and that she be released. The widespread and routine manner in which Israel uses administrative detention of Palestinians as an instrument of Occupation is deeply discriminatory. It cannot be legally or morally justified.

“May God watch over Layan during her detention and comfort her family at this testing time.”

This is the second time Nasir has been arrested. In 2021 she was detained for her involvement in activities with a banned student union at Birzeit University. Nasir was released on bail two months later.