NABLUS, West Bank, 28 September 2006 — Israel yesterday freed Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Al-Shaer, the most senior Hamas official to be released since Israel pressed a major crackdown against the Islamist party.
A military judge ordered Shaer to walk free more than a month after he was arrested in the occupied West Bank, citing “lack of evidence” and the fact that no charges had been brought against him, his lawyer Osama Al-Saadi told AFP.
Shaer is the most senior Hamas official to be released since Israel arrested scores of members of the movement after its armed wing claimed joint responsibility for the capture of a soldier near the Gaza Strip in late June.
The British-educated minister, who was held in a jail in Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv, was released after appearing before the judge in a nearby police station, Saadi said.
Shaer immediately set out for home in the northern Nablus region of the West Bank where hundreds turned out to provide a hero’s welcome.
Fellow lawyer Fares Abu Al-Hassan said the Israeli judge had banned his client from visiting the West Bank political capital of Ramallah, or leaving the West Bank until Oct. 15.
Less than two hours after his release, the 44-year-old Palestinian deputy premier arrived at the Israeli Army Hawara Checkpoint at the entrance to Nablus where dozens of his relatives came out to greet him.
A convoy of cars decorated with Palestinian flags and green Hamas banners then spirited him away to a city reception hall where hundreds of supporters flocked to welcome him.
“My arrest was not justified. It was part of the aggression waged against the Palestinian people,” the minister declared.
Israeli troops arrested Shaer, who also serves as education minister in the Hamas-led government, on Aug. 19 at dawn in Ramallah.
The military confirmed at the time that his detention was part of a wider clampdown on Hamas. Before taking office in the government last March, the father of six was the dean of the theology faculty at Al-Najah University in Nablus. In 1996, he graduated with a doctorate from the department of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Manchester in England.
Israel arrested more than 60 Hamas officials, including a third of the Cabinet and more than two dozen MPs.
Twenty-eight MPs, including Parliament Speaker Aziz Dweik, and four Cabinet ministers remain in custody. Most of them have been charged with membership in a terrorist organization.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has urged Israel to free detained Hamas ministers and lawmakers before a national unity government is formed between the Islamist movement and his moderate Fatah faction.
Meanwhile, top Israeli officials vowed yesterday to step up a three-month military offensive in the Gaza Strip to stop Palestinians from firing rockets into the Jewish state.
“The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and the security services have no limitations to prevent any act of terror,” a senior government official quoted Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as telling a Cabinet meeting.
“The Cabinet will convene and be presented with action plans and decisions will be taken. No one wants or is ready to accept the Qassam fire,” he said, referring to rockets fired into Israel from the coastal strip.
The chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, said “our handling of the Qassam fire necessitates different steps on a different scale and in different areas,” according to the official.
And Avi Dichter, public security minister and former chief of the Shin Beth domestic security agency, said the government “must rethink its policy toward Gaza following the ongoing Qassam fire.”
“The response of the defense establishment to the threat is insufficient and we need to take tougher steps,” the official quoted Dichter as saying. “We do not have to take over Gaza, but action is needed in order to create deterrents vis-a-vis the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. We must strike where it is needed,” Dichter said.
Israel has waged a massive military offensive in Gaza with the stated goals of retrieving a soldier captured by fighters, including those from the ruling Hamas party, and stopping rocket attacks on its territory.
