RAMALLAH: Israeli Defense Force units operating in West Bank cities on early Wednesday arrested 16 Palestinians, Israeli and Palestinian security sources said.
The Palestinian sources told Arab News they were arrested in the West Bank governorates of Nablus, Jenin and Hebron.
Israeli security sources told the Army Radio that a shotgun found in one of the houses in the village of Burqa, near Nablus, was confiscated. The sources said the detainees were taken to unknown locations for questioning by the Israeli intelligence agency Shin Bet.
The Israeli sources also said a 26-year-old Palestinian man from Jenin was arrested on suspicion of using a fake identity card while trying to pass through a checkpoint in the Jordan Valley. According to the sources, the man bought the ID card from a person in Israel.
The development came as the Egyptian newspaper Al-Mesryoon reported Wednesday that Israel and Hamas movement will resume negotiations for the release of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for Palestinian prisoners as early as next week with Egyptian and German mediation. The resumption of talks will be more than a month after the failure of the most promising round of talks between the parties.
The report, which the paper stated was based on reliable sources, noted that France might join the talks in an effort to help overcome the differences that hindered the deal’s progress. Shalit possesses French citizenship and President Nicolas Sarkozy has met with the soldier’s father, Noam, several times in the past.
The report further claimed that France intends on presenting a line of new concepts to the parties, including a suggestion to carry out the deal in one stage in which Israel would release approximately 1,000 prisoners parallel to the return of Shalit, as opposed to the German mediator’s plan of executing the exchange in three separate stages.
The sources nevertheless noted that in recent talks between the Hamas leadership and Egyptian officials, Hamas stressed that it does not intend on being flexible and making changes to its prisoners list, which may cause a strain on the negotiations.
Meanwhile, Hamas accused Israel of retreating from a series of German-mediated agreements that would have paved the way for a prisoner exchange, a senior Hamas official said.
“The prisoner swap is going through a state of freeze because (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu’s government has a strict position and had retreated from a set of deals that were reached through the German mediator,” Ezzat Al-Resheq, a Damascus-based member of the Hamas’ political bureau, was quoted by the pro-Hamas Al-Resala website as saying.
Resheq said Israel’s stance has “embarrassed and weakened” the German mediator who has been trying to secure a deal that would free captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for a number of Palestinian and Arab prisoners.
He added that Israel has decided not to free several senior leaders from Hamas and other Palestinian groups, creating a new obstacle.
