RAMALLAH: Israeli soldiers detained two sisters of Saleh Al-Aruri, a top leader of Hamas who was killed in Lebanon this month, Palestinian sources and the Israeli army said on Sunday.
The killing of Aruri, the deputy chief of Hamas, in a suburb of Beirut on January 2 was widely attributed to an Israeli drone strike, fueling fears that Israel’s war in Gaza could widen into a regional conflict.
The Israeli army said on Sunday it had detained the two women in the occupied West Bank “after they incited to terrorism against the state of Israel,” without elaborating.
The brother-in-law of Aruri, Awar Al-Aruri, said the two women and several other family members had been put into “administrative detention.”
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, a campaign group, said Dalal Al-Aruri, 52, and Fatima Al-Aruri, 47, were arrested in separate locations near the city of Ramallah.
The Israeli army had accused Aruri of helping to plan the October 7 attack in southern Israel by Hamas fighters from Gaza, which resulted in the deaths of 1,140, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has since killed at least 23,843 people, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said 5,875 Palestinians have been detained in the West Bank since the Gaza war began.
It said that, of these, 1,970 had been put under administrative detention, which allows for suspects to be held without charge or trial for renewable periods of up to six months.
Israel says administrative detention is intended to allow authorities to hold suspects while continuing to gather evidence, with the aim of preventing attacks or other security offenses in the meantime.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War and, excluding annexed east Jerusalem, the territory is now home to around 490,000 Israelis who live in settlements considered illegal under international law.
Israel detains two sisters of killed Hamas leader Aruri
https://arab.news/9dkny
Israel detains two sisters of killed Hamas leader Aruri
- Israeli army said it had detained the two women in the occupied West Bank “after they incited to terrorism against the state of Israel”
- Dalal Al-Aruri, 52, and Fatima Al-Aruri, 47, were arrested in separate locations near the city of Ramallah
Syrian leader to meet Putin, Russia seeks deal on military bases
- Russia’s continued sheltering of Assad and his wife since their ouster remains a thorny issue
MOSCOW: Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa will meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday, as the Kremlin seeks to secure the future of its military bases in the country.
Putin and Sharaa struck a conciliatory tone at their previous meeting in October, their first since Sharaa’s rebel forces toppled Moscow-ally Bashar Assad in 2024.
But Russia’s continued sheltering of Assad and his wife since their ouster remains a thorny issue. Sharaa has repeatedly pushed Russia for their extradition.
Sharaa, meanwhile, has embraced US President Donald Trump, who on Tuesday praised the Syrian leader as “highly respected” and said things were “working out very well.”
Putin, whose influence in the Middle East has waned since Assad’s ouster, is seeking to maintain Russia’s military footprint in the region.
Russia withdrew its forces from the Qamishli airport in Kurdish-held northeast Syria earlier this week, leaving it with only the Hmeimim air base and Tartus naval base on Syria’s Mediterranean coast — its only military outposts outside the former Soviet Union.
“A discussion is planned on the status of bilateral relations and prospects for developing them in various fields, as well as the current situation in the Middle East,” the Kremlin said of the upcoming meeting in a statement on Tuesday.
Russia was a key ally of Assad during the bloody 14-year Syrian civil war, launching air strikes on rebel-held areas of Syria controlled by Sharaa’s Islamist forces.
The toppling of Assad dealt a major blow to Russia’s influence in the region and laid bare the limits of Moscow’s military reach amid the Ukraine war.
The United States, which cheered Assad’s demise, has fostered ever-warmer ties with Sharaa — even as Damascus launched a recent offensive against Kurdish forces long backed by the West.
Despite Trump’s public praise, both the United States and Europe have expressed concern that the offensive in Syria’s northeast could precipitate the return of Islamic State forces held in Kurdish-held jails.
