Israeli Occupation Forces Make Several Arrests in the Bethlehem Area

As with most arrest campaigns it is difficult to know who has been taken, where they are and for what purpose. Detainees may be affliliated with the armed resistance or maybe implicated through association. Detainees can be community leaders or academics who have arracted attention to themselves by criticising the occupation and are subsequently taken from their beds in the middle of the night. Detainees can be ordinary children throwing stones at armoured jeeps. Detainees may also have nothing to do with resistance and are arrested due to false information.

There are over 9000 political prisoners in Isreali jails of which approximately 1000 are being held indefinetely without trial. Both Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations have indicated that prisoners are subjected to varying levels of physical torture and phychological abuse.

Its worth noting that detainees come from a variety of social, political, religious and economic backgrounds however, they all hold one thing in common. They have been arrested as part of the Israeli occupation's ambition to intimidate the Palestinian people and crush any form of dissent.

-IMEMC
Friday 13 2006

The Israeli forces invaded tTaqua, Za'tar and Al Khader village in Bethlehem district south of the West Bank on Friday at dawn and took three residents prisoner. Soldiers and jeeps stormed Taqua village, east of Bethlehem, taking Hanni Al Eroj, 33, to an unknown location after searching and ransacking his house.

Meanwhilem, Israeli force invaded Za'tra village, also east of Bethlehem, and searched several houses before taking Ahied Al Wahish, 24, to an unknown location. Al Wahish works as a Palestinian security officer in the city of Bethlehem, his family stated. In Al Khader, south of Bethlehem, more than 6 army vehicles entered the village and took Ramzi Salah, 32, to unknown location after searching his house.