By Xinhua
Ramallah : The Israeli Army and the Palestinian security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Monday arrested at least 20 Hamas members in separate operations in the West Bank, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.
Israeli Arabic radio Voice of Israel quoted an Israeli army spokesman as saying that Israeli soldiers arrested a total of 12 wanted Hamas movement members in the West Bank towns of Nablus, Ramallah and Hebron.
Palestinian security sources specified that among the 12, six were arrested in Nablus, three in Ramallah and the other three in Hebron.
Palestinian witnesses said the 12 were taken away from their homes during Israeli Army raids before dawn.
Meanwhile, Abbas’ security forces also claimed to have arrested eight members of the extremist group in the West Bank early Monday morning. Most of them were detained in the town of Nablus.
A senior Palestinian security official said on condition of anonymity that the arrests came as Hamas’ attempts at a military coup in the West Bank, modelling after the Gaza “coup”, were still going on.
Saturday, Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a prominent Hamas leader, in Gaza told the Doha-based al-Jazeera satellite TV channel that his movement “is representing a majority among the Palestinians” and it should rule the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as soon as Israel ends its occupation.
In mid-June, Hamas militants routed President Abbas’ security forces and thus took control of the Gaza enclave, which was defined by Abbas as a “military coup.”
Since then, Hamas-led government in Gaza has been rejecting all the presidential decrees and stood against the caretaker government installed by President Abbas in Ramallah.