ISRAEL ARRESTS PALI (HAMAS) PARLIAMENT LEADER
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Israeli security forces detained Palestinian parliamentary speaker Aziz Dweik, a leader of the governing Hamas movement, in a raid on his West Bank home on Sunday, while an airstrike killed a Palestinian in the southern Gaza Strip, as Israel pressed its offensive against militants.
“We were sitting home peacefully, normally. Then we heard knocking on the door, which surprised and shocked us because the knocking was so loud,” Dweik’s wife told Reuters in the West Bank city of Ramallah after the night-time arrest.
“He went down because the army was there. He opened the door. They saw him in his pajamas and asked him to go with them. He asked for his clothes, and I brought them.” An Israeli army spokesman confirmed Dweik was taken into custody. “He is the head of Hamas’s legislature and since Hamas is a terrorist organization, he is a target for arrest,” he said.
PA protests detention of Hamas officials (JPOST)
The Palestinian Authority on Sunday expressed outrage over the arrest by the IDF of Aziz Dweik, speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and called on the international community to exert pressure on Israel to release him and other Hamas officials.
PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh accused Israel of trying to "blackmail" the Hamas government by arresting 27 PLC members and eight ministers, in addition to Dweik, who was picked up from his home in Ramallah late Saturday night.
"They [Israel] are trying to disrupt the work of the democratically elected government and to force the Palestinians to surrender," Haniyeh told reporters in Gaza City. He also accused Israel of "state terrorism" and criticized the Arab world for failing to help the Palestinians and Lebanese.
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