Several Palestinians including a journalist were kidnapped by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) in abduction sweeps launched at predawn Sunday.
Overnight the Israeli army claimed responsibility for the abduction of four Palestinians on account of their involvement in anti-occupation events.
The campaign targeted three Palestinians from Jenin’s northern town of al-Jalama and another from the southern West Bank province of al-Khalil.
A PIC reporter said the IOF soldiers rolled into al-Jalama at around 3 a.m. and wreaked havoc on civilian homes before they kidnapped three Palestinians two among whom aged 21 and the third in his early 30s.
Palestinian journalist Raed Abu Rmeila working for B’Tselem watchdog was arrested by the occupation soldiers from southern al-Khalil and transferred to an Israeli detention center where he had been aggressively attacked and strip-searched. He was released sometime later.
The attack on Abu Rmeila has not been the first of its kind. He had been subjected to several such assaults while covering Israeli violations against the Palestinians in the Old City of al-Khalil. Last Thursday he survived gunshots fired by an Israeli soldier overnight.
Meanwhile reporting from Bethlehem in the southern occupied West Bank a PIC news correspondent said the IOF kidnapped five Palestinian young men in a predawn raid on the city.
The list of detainees included Mohamed Mo’men Khalaf his cousin Mohamed Ma’moun and Ibrahim Hamamra all kidnapped from their family homes in Husan village west of Bethlehem.
At the same time 27-year-old Palestinian youth Assid al-Wardian from Bethlehem was transferred to administrative detention with neither charge nor trial just a couple of days after he was arrested by the IOF. His health has reportedly gone downhill as a result of a heart attack sustained one month ago in the Palestinian Authority (PA) lock-ups.
