NABLUS, Palestinian Territories: The Israeli military detained several Palestinians in an overnight raid in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, an AFP journalist at the scene said on Friday.
When contacted by AFP, an Israeli military spokesman confirmed the raid and said that “forces operated in the Nablus area to apprehend several suspects involved in terrorist activities.”
“The suspects were subsequently transferred to the Shin Bet for questioning,” the spokesman added, referring to the Israeli domestic intelligence agency.
An official from Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas said that “former prisoners, journalists, academics and members of the Legislative Council,” were among those targeted.
The detentions “will only fuel public anger,” said Abdul Rahman Shadid, a Hamas official in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since the Hamas attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war in October 2023.
Since then, Israeli troops and settlers have killed at least 983 Palestinians in the West Bank, including many militants, according to health ministry figures.
Over the same period, at least 36 Israelis, including members of security forces, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations, according to official figures.
Meanwhile, the Allenby border crossing — which is the only international gateway for Palestinians to leave the West Bank that does not require entering Israel — reopened on Friday, but later than scheduled.
The crossing had been largely closed since a Jordanian truck driver transporting humanitarian aid to Gaza shot dead an Israeli soldier and a reserve officer at the border last week.
On Tuesday, Palestinian and Jordanian authorities said Israel was indefinitely closing the crossing, which Palestinians feared was retaliation by Israel for France and other Western countries formally recognizing a Palestinian state.
Israel announced on Thursday it would reopen the crossing only for passenger traffic from the next morning.
At around 11:00 am (0800 GMT) on Friday, Palestinian travelers confirmed the reopening, roughly three hours later than scheduled.
Thousands of people gathered in front of the terminal, an AFP journalist on the scene reported.
In an angry UN address on Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to block a Palestinian state, accusing European leaders of pushing his country into “national suicide” and rewarding Hamas.
Israel detains Palestinians in Nablus, reopens West Bank-Jordan crossing
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Israel detains Palestinians in Nablus, reopens West Bank-Jordan crossing
- “The suspects were subsequently transferred to the Shin Bet for questioning,” the spokesman added
- The detentions “will only fuel public anger,” said Abdul Rahman Shadid, a Hamas official in the West Bank
Trial opens in Tunisia of NGO workers accused of aiding migrants
- Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society”
TUNIS: Aid workers accused of assisting irregular migration to Tunisia went on trial on Monday, as Amnesty International criticized what it called “the relentless criminalization of civil society” in the country.
Six staff members of the Tunisian branch of the France Terre d’Asile aid group, along with 17 municipal workers from the eastern city of Sousse, face charges of sheltering migrants and facilitating their “illegal entry and residence.”
If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison.
Migration is a sensitive issue in Tunisia, a key transit point for tens of thousands of people seeking to reach Europe each year.
A former head of Terre d’Asile Tunisie, Sherifa Riahi, is among the accused and has been detained for more than 19 months, according to her lawyer Abdellah Ben Meftah.
He told AFP that the accused had carried out their work as part of a project approved by the state and in “direct coordination” with the government.
Amnesty denounced what it described as a “bogus criminal trial” and called on Tunisian authorities to drop the charges.
“They are being prosecuted simply for their legitimate work providing vital assistance and protection to refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in precarious situations,” Sara Hashash, Amnesty’s deputy MENA chief, said in the statement.
The defendants were arrested in May 2024 along with about a dozen humanitarian workers, including anti-racism pioneer Saadia Mosbah, whose trial is set to start later this month.
In February 2023, President Kais Saied said “hordes of illegal migrants,” many from sub-Saharan Africa, posed a demographic threat to the Arab-majority country.
His speech triggered a series of racially motivated attacks as thousands of sub-Saharan African migrants in Tunisia were pushed out of their homes and jobs.
Thousands were repatriated or attempted to cross the Mediterranean, while others were expelled to the desert borders with Algeria and Libya, where at least a hundred died that summer.
This came as the European Union boosted efforts to curb arrivals on its southern shores, including a 255-million-euro ($290-million) deal with Tunis.
