Israeli troops arrested dozens of Palestinians during overnight raids in the West Bank, including a security official from Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, security sources on both sides said on Tuesday.
Fatah security official Mansour Shreim was arrested in the town of Ramallah, the army said in a statement.
Israel accuses him of organising an attack on a ballroom party in the northern Israeli city of Hadera which killed seven people, including the 24-year-old assailant, on January 17.
The Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, an armed offshoot of Fatah, claimed responsibility for the attack, which they said was in revenge for the killing by Israeli forces of one of their leaders, Raed al-Karmi.
Palestinian security sources said two students were also arrested near Ramallah, at Bir Zeit University.
In the Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem, more than 100 soldiers carried out house-to-house searches with sniffer dogs, arresting 14 men, Palestinian security sources said.
An army representative confirmed the arrest of nine Palestinians ”either on Israel’s wanted list or wanted for questioning” in the southern West Bank refugee camp.
He said another two Palestinians had been arrested in the Bethlehem area, including a member of the hardline Islamic Jihad movement, Mohammed Masalma.
Palestinian sources said they had no knowledge of the man’s alleged militant activities. The army representative said 42 Palestinians have been arrested, including five would-be suicide bombers, since Israeli forces rolled back into Bethlehem on November 22, a day after a bomber killed 11 people on a Jerusalem bus.
In the Nablus area in the northern West Bank, the army said it had arrested 11 other Fatah activists, including two members of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, adding that one of them had a 10-kilogram bomb.
The other 13 Palestinians were arrested in raids on Hebron, Jenin and the Kalandia refugee camp south of Ramallah, the army said.
Israeli soldiers also mounted an operation on Monday night in Ramallah to find Jack Nazal, a leader of the hardline Islamic movement Hamas, and surrounded a house where they believed he was hiding, the Palestinian security officials said.
All West Bank towns but Jericho are reoccupied by the army and subjected to closures and curfews aimed at dismantling Palestinian militant cells. – Sapa-AFP