GAZA CITY, 20 August 2006 — Israeli troops seized Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister and senior Hamas member Nassereddin Al-Shaer at dawn yesterday. Israel has detained more than 60 Hamas officials since the June 25 capture of an Israeli soldier in the Gaza Strip. The arrested Hamas leaders include Palestinian Parliament Speaker Aziz Dweik.
The Hamas-led Palestinian government condemned the latest arrest as an attempt to destroy the Palestinian administration. Ghazi Hamad, spokesman of the Palestinian government, said Shaer’s arrest came within the framework of the Israeli aggression that aimed to topple the government. “Israel’s goal is the eradication or weakening of any Palestinian government or authority.”
“At 4:30 in the morning the soldiers came to our house and took Nasser,” Shaer’s wife Huda said. Palestinian security sources said 30 army jeeps entered the West Bank town of Ramallah at dawn and left immediately after the arrest of the 45-year-old Shaer, who is also the education minister.
An Israeli Army spokesman confirmed the arrest “as part of our fight against the radical Hamas movement.”
The armed wing of Hamas is one of the three groups that claimed the capture of the Israeli soldier. As part of its crackdown against Hamas, the Jewish state on June 29 detained 64 Hamas officials, including eight ministers and 26 lawmakers. Four of them were released but three more were detained later, including Dweik.
Hamas described the seizure of the deputy premier as “political blackmail.” The Israeli crackdown, which has also involved large military incursions into Palestinian areas, began June 28, three days after the capture of 19-year-old Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit.
Since his seizure, there has been no evidence that Shalit is still alive but contacts led by Egypt have continued in a bid to reach an agreement on a prisoner exchange. Around 180 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip since the soldier’s abduction.
Shaer is a father of six from the northern West Bank and former dean of the faculty of Islamic studies at Nablus’ An-Najah University. He was largely unknown before his appointment in the Palestinian Cabinet in March.
Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official from the former ruling Fatah party, condemned Shaer’s seizure and said it risked sabotaging Palestinian efforts to form a national unity government. “This arrest torpedoes all efforts to form a national unity government that would implement the program of president (Mahmoud) Abbas,” Erekat said, and called for the release of all detained Hamas officials.
France condemned the Israeli action. “We have learned with concern of the arrest... by the Israeli Army of the Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister Nasser Shaer,” the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “We repeat our condemnation of the arrests of members of the Palestinian Authority. Only a political process based on dialogue can end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
