Israel arrests Hamas official Hussein Abu Kweik[ 01/06/2011 - 09:01 PM ]
RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Israeli authorities detained noon Wednesday senior Hamas official Hussein Abu Kweik, 55, after summoning him for questioning to intelligence headquarters in the Israeli Ofer prison, Abu Kweik's wife has informed the PIC.
Witnesses told our correspondent they saw Abu Kweik cuffed and blindfolded at around 1pm as he was being led to an unknown destination.
Israel's intelligence agency Shin Bet called Abu Kweik's cell phone the night before and ordered him to appear at headquarters in the Ofer prison near Ramallah city.
The Hamas leader told the PIC before meeting with the Shin Bet officials that Israel is targeting Hamas and Islamic Jihad officials in a bid to suppress their influence in the West Bank and to torpedo the recent Palestinian reconciliation accord.
He said Israel also wants to thwart Naksa day protests and Hamas’s recovery in the West Bank after the reconciliation.
Abu Kweik has spent a total of 12 years detained in Israeli prisons. He survived an Israeli assassination attempt in 2002 that claimed the lives of his wife and three of his sons.
The night before, Israeli authorities nabbed Palestinian Legislative Council member Nazar Ramadan while passing through the Container checkpoint that divides central and southern West Bank.
The arrest came just hours after the arrest of PLC speaker Dr. Aziz Dweik and two more PLC members Anwar Zabboun and Bassem al-Zaarir for more than four hours. All have been released apart from MP Ramadan.
The legislators were kept in isolation while being held.
[ 02/06/2011 - 11:08 AM ]
TULKAREM, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested Hamas MP Abdulrahman Zeidan from his village of Deir Al-Ghussun at dawn Thursday after threatening to blow up his house if he did not get out of it immediately.
Family members said that the IOF soldiers then stormed and searched the house after forcing all of the occupants into one room.
They said that the commanding officer sarcastically told Zeidan that he would be released in a deal to free captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit maybe in a year’s time.
Zeidan was released from Israeli occupation jails in March 2009 after almost three years in captivity. The MP served as a minister of transport in the tenth Palestinian government.
The number of lawmakers in Israeli custody thus rose to 17 after another MP, Nizar Ramadan, was detained on Wednesday.
Local sources, meanwhile, said that IOF soldiers arrested Fatah leader Husam Khader from his home in Balata refugee camp east of Nablus in a pre dawn raid on Thursday.
Khader’s relatives said that the soldiers ransacked his home using police dogs before taking him away without telling them where to.
Locals also said that a university lecturer was taken away from his home west of Nablus, after he was released only few months ago from Israeli custody, along with a former candidate for the legislative elections of 2006.
For its part, Tadamun foundation for human rights issued a statement on Thursday denouncing the arrest of Zeidan, Khader, and other Palestinian MPS and leaders.
Ahmed Al-Beitawi, a researcher with the foundation, said that the Israeli occupation authority’s arrest campaign targets hampering national reconciliation efforts.
He noted that unlike the past sweeping campaign of arrests, the IOA was detaining MPs and leaders one by one in a bid to avoid public uproar and international denunciations.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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