Zionist Troops Arrest 20 Palestinians in Raids

Date: 22 February 2021 - 21:36

News ID: ۸۷۸۹۴

RAMALLAH (Dispatches) – Zionist troops rounded up 20 Palestinians in overnight raids across the occupied West Bank, according to a Palestinian NGO on Monday.
"Twenty Palestinians were detained by the Israeli military last night,” Amani Sarhana, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Prisoner Society, told Anadolu Agency.
She said influential figures were among those detained, but without giving any further details. "Other people were summoned by the Israeli intelligence service for questioning,” Sarhana said.
According to local residents, leading Hamas member Mustafa al-Shannar, a lecturer at An-Najah University, was detained during a raid on his home in the West Bank city of Nablus.
Al-Shannar had previously been detained by the regime’s military.
Hamas resistance movement has warned of plans by the occupying regime to stage a mass arrest campaign against the resistance group ahead of the Palestinian elections later this year.
Meanwhile, Arabi21.com reported on Sunday that the head of the Islamic Movement in Palestine, Sheikh Raed Salah, has been held in solitary confinement since he was jailed by the occupying regime on 15 August last year. His lawyer Khalid Zabarqeh said that Sheikh Salah has been facing harsh treatment and difficult conditions in the occupying regime’s prison in the Negev Desert.
The leading Palestinian human rights activist is serving a 17-month sentence in a small, isolated cell. He is allowed out for one hour a day.
Zabarqeh described solitary confinement as a form of torture for prisoners in Israeli jails. It is, he insisted, a violation of international human rights conventions and laws, which make it illegal to arrest people for their political views or religious affiliations.
In another development, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Zionist troops have either demolished or confiscated nearly 90 Palestinian structures in the occupied West Bank and East al-Quds, displacing about 150 Palestinians in two weeks.
In its recent bi-weekly report, the UN office said the demolitions occurred in February and displaced 146 Palestinian citizens, including 83 children, while affecting at least 330 others.
On February 3 and 8, the Zionist troops tore down 37 structures in Humsa al-Buqaia hamlet in the northern Jordan Valley, displacing 60 citizens, including 35 children, the report added.
More than 600,000 Zionists live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds.
All settlements are illegal under international law. The UN Security Council has condemned the regime’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.
Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state with East al-Quds as its capital.