RAMALLAH/GAZA CITY, 8 March 2007 — Israeli occupation forces arrested 18 activists in a raid on the Palestinian military intelligence headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah yesterday.
Palestinian security sources said that 13 of the arrested were activists from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the military wing of Fatah; three from Tulkarm, one from Nablus, six from Ramallah and three from Jenin. One of the arrested is believed to be an Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades member, the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), from Ramallah, and four others are as yet unidentified.
Witnesses said that yesterday morning a huge contingent of Israeli military jeeps and vehicles, accompanied by bulldozers, besieged the headquarters and summoned the “wanted” Palestinians using loudspeakers. They called for the “wanted” to turn themselves in, then started shooting and using sonic stun grenades.
Also yesterday, Israeli troops at dawn rolled into the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun under the cover of intensified firing, witnesses and security sources said, adding that the incursion was backed by warplanes. The sources added that the Israeli troops occupied two houses in the vicinity of Beit Hanoun, no one was reportedly injured.
Meanwhile, reliable sources said yesterday that most of the outstanding issues over the formation of a Palestinian unity government have been settled and talks between President Mahmoud Abbas and caretaker Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh will resume today to select the interior minister.
The sources said that President Abbas has rejected the Hamas candidate for the interior minister and asked Hamas to propose a more independent one. The sources added that Abbas has handed a list of 12 independent candidates to select an interior minister. Among the 12 persons are former Judge Hamdan Abadla from Khan Younis, former deputy for the attorney general Judge Mazin Salim from Gaza City, Gen. Abdul Razzaq Al-Yahia and Gen. Suleiman Hillis.
Meanwhile, the head of the northern branch of Israel’s Islamic Movement, Sheikh Raad Salah, was arrested yesterday in East Jerusalem after waving a Syrian flag and delivering speeches seen as inciting. Salah was arrested along with another demonstrator while protesting in the Wadi Joz neighborhood against the Israeli excavations at Al-Magharibah Gate in Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
A number of Druze activists from the Golan Heights as well as Bedouin sheikhs from the Negev arrived at the protest tent in Wadi Joz to show solidarity with Salah’s struggle against the excavations.
Protesters waved Syrian and Palestine Liberation Organization flags and shouted slogans condemning Israel.
