Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Israeli occupation forces arrest MP Nayef Rajoub


Nayef Rajoub released from an Israeli jail late June 2010



 
From Khalid Amayreh in Occupied Palestine

The Israeli occupation army on Wednesday, 1 December, arrested Sheikh Nayef Rajoub, a member of the Palestinian  Legislative Council from his home in the town of Dura , near Hebron in the southern West Bank .

Eyewitnesses and family sources said Israeli occupation troops stormed the Legislative Council member's home around mid night, before ordering him at gun point to board an Israel military vehicle.

The latest arrest of Rajoub comes as part of the general Israeli policy of hounding Hamas' political leaders and keeping them  in a constant state of anxiety and fear.

Four Islamic members of the  Legislative Council have been rearrested and sent for "administrative detention" or captivity without charge or trial.

Rajoub, a former Religious Affair Minister,  was  released from Israeli detention on 20 June, having spent as many fifty months on largely concocted charges stemming from his association with the political wing  of the Islamic  liberation movement, Hamas.

Rajoub has spent a total  of  ten  years in Israeli  jails and detention camps.

Israel routinely rounds up  Islamist activists in the West Bank , mainly as a retribution for their rejection of the Israeli occupation.

 Rajoub, considered one of the most  popular  Islamist  leaders in the southern West Bank, has also been hounded by the Palestinian Authority security agencies.

A few weeks ago, crack PA troops stormed the Grand Mosque in Dura to prevent him from delivering a sermon at the Mosque.

The incident was followed by an extensive  arrest campaign targeting dozens of Islamic supporters, including many members of the Rajoub family.

Some sources close  to Nayef  Rajoub's  family accuse the PA of asking  Israel  to arrest the 53-year-old Sheikh. The PA can't arrest Rajoub  because of his parliamentary immunity.

Supporters of Hamas  in the West Bank have been subjected to  a harsh crackdown by the security forces of the PA. Human rights organizations operating in the  West Bank  have also spoken of widespread torture in PA lockups.

Two main reasons are believed to stand behind the severe maltreatment meted out to Islamist activists in the West Bank at the hands of the PA: First, reprisal for the Hamas military takeover in Gaza in 2007, which ended Fatah's rule there; and, second, the PA belief that a sustained persecution of Hamas would grant the Ramallah regime a certificate of good conduct from Israel and the United States. (end)

Posted by Khaled Amayreh via Palestine Information Center ( PIC ).


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