Israeli army arrests ex-Hamas lawmakers in West Bank

Police officers in a van in Herzliya, Israel on May 17, 2020. [Nir Keidar – Anadolu Agency]

Israeli forces detained two former Palestinian legislators in raids in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, according to local residents, Anadolu Agency reports.

Israeli soldiers raided the homes of former MPs, Hatem Qafisha and Nayef Rajoub, in the city of Hebron in the southern West Bank and took them into custody, the residents said.

Qafisha was later released by Israeli forces.

The former lawmakers are from Palestinian resistance group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.

There was no comment from the Israeli army on the raids.

Last week, the Israeli army arrested former Hamas lawmaker Nezar Ramadan and former minister Essa al-Jaabari, who was later released.

READ: Israel releases prominent Hamas leader

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.