Israeli forces detain 26 Palestinians in West Bank, including mayor, senior Fatah officials

RAMALLAH, Palestine / ISTANBUL

Israeli forces detained 26 Palestinians in overnight raids across the occupied West Bank on Thursday, including the mayor of a northern town and several senior officials from the Fatah movement, according to local media and witnesses.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported arrests in the provinces of Salfit, Jenin, Tulkarem, Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Hebron.

In Salfit, troops detained Deputy Fatah Secretary Ahmed Abdel Karim al-Dik, Revolutionary Council member Jamal Hammad, and veteran leader Bahjat Asi, alongside several other people.

Soldiers also searched the home of provincial official Makram Amer. Wafa noted that the army has held Salfit’s Fatah Secretary Abdel Sattar Awad for more than a week.

In Jenin, the detainees included Abdel Fattah Abu Ali, mayor of Silat al-Dhahr, as well as six residents from neighboring towns. Four Palestinians, mostly former prisoners, were taken in the Tulkarem district.

Elsewhere, three men were arrested in the Ramallah area, while in Bethlehem, raids on the Aida and Dheisheh refugee camps led to four detentions. In Hebron, soldiers rounded up two Palestinians following house searches in several towns.

Eyewitnesses told Anadolu that the raids involved extensive home invasions, interrogations, and property damage.

Separately, illegal Israeli settlers burned two Palestinian vehicles in Al-Minya town of Bethlehem, according to the official Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission.

Illegal settlers also attempted to torch another car in Atara town of Ramallah, damaging the exterior structure, and spray-painting racist slogans on the vehicle, the commission said.

Since October 2023, when Israel launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, at least 1,020 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in the West Bank by Israeli forces and illegal settlers, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

In a landmark opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.