MP Attoun kidnapped from the Red Cross in Jerusalem

MP Attoun kidnapped from the Red Cross in Jerusalem

[ 26/09/2011 - 12:18 PM ] 

  OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- An Israeli Border Guard unit, dressed as Arabs, kidnapped, at noon Monday, Palestinian MP Muhammad Attoun at the entrance of the Jerusalem Red Cross in a move expected to spark rage among local Palestinians.

Israeli Border Guard unit, dressed as Arabs,

The operation was coordinated also with the Israeli occupation police unit’s minorities division, according to media reports.

MP Attoun, along with another Palestinian MP Ahmed Totah and the Palestinian Authority’s former minister of Jerusalem Khalid Abu Arafeh, were staying at a protest tent at the Red Cross compound in the Sheikh Jarrah district after the Israeli occupation authorities revoked their right of residence in their native city of Jerusalem and sought to banish them.
Attoun’s wife said she was visiting him alongside her daughter when undercover officers suddenly pounced him as he neared the entrance of the Red Cross premises where he has been holding a sit-in for over a year to protest the banishment decision. She added that she does not know where her husband was taken to.

Director of Jerusalem information center Muhammad Sadiq told our correspondent that when Attoun’s wife and daughter came to visit, three masked men abducted Attoun and detained him in a vehicle before Israeli security forces arrived at the scene.

Sadiq said the entry of the Red Cross sanctuary was in violation of international laws, adding that the arrest of the Palestinian people’s government representative could trigger friction across the occupied Palestinian territories.

Attoun, Totah, and Abu Arafeh, politicians from Hamas’s Change and reform bloc, were arrested in 2006 after Hamas gained dominance in the Palestinian ballot boxes. The Israeli occupation authorities also revoked their residence in Jerusalem after the men were released following three year prison terms.

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