Israel Detains More Palestinian Ministers

Palestinian boys hold pictures of Palestinian officials arrested by Israel during a Gaza rally. (Reuters)

Minister of state Wasfi Qabha was taken from his house in the West Bank city of Jenin after Israeli troops raided in, his wife told Agence France-Presse (AFP) Saturday, May 26.

Qabaha's daughter, Ryan, added five soldiers came to their house before dawn, took her father, his computer and other of his documents.

Qabaha, a minister without portfolio, was also arrested last year for a month during a similar sweep.

Israeli forces detained 33 senior Hamas figures in the West Bank on Thursday, May 24, drawing international criticism.

They included education minister Nassereddin al-Shaer, three lawmakers and four mayors, among others.

France had already condemned Thursday's detentions, with a foreign ministry spokesman saying they jeopardized the fledgling Palestinian unity government and the possibility of peace talks.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz justified the arrests in the face of international criticism, saying they sent a "message to the military branches of terrorist organizations to stop their rocket fire."

The last time Israel arrested Hamas politicians was in June 2006, immediately after Hamas kidnapped Corporal Gilad Shalit to Gaza in a cross-border raid.

More Killings

A Palestinain carries a boy wounded in an Israeli Gaza raid. (Reuters)

Israeli warplanes resumed its raids Saturday on the Gaza Strip, killing at least five Palestinians at a compound housing Hamas's Executive Force in Gaza City.

Earlier in the day Israel raided the security post at Haniyah's residence in the Shati refugee camp and a workshop at Jabaliya in the northern Gaza Strip, reported AFP.

Medical sources said five people were wounded in a Friday air strike on security forces at Haniyah's home but there were no reports of injuries in the latest attack.

Also on Friday, two Hamas fighters were killed as Israeli warplanes pounded the Gaza Strip for a ninth day in a row.

Israeli aircrafts also fired rockets at a post used by the Executive Force paramilitary loyal to Hamas, wounding one bystander, witnesses said. The Israeli military confirmed the attack but gave no details on casualties.

Israeli Air raids have killed 13 Palestinian civilians and 27 militants since May 16.

But they have failed to halt Palestinian rocket attacks, with more than 130 slamming into Israel over the past week and a half, killing a woman and wounding 16 other people.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas called Friday for a truce between resistance factions and Israel.

Hamas and other factions had earlier signaled readiness to consider Abbas's proposal that would effectively lead to renewing a Gaza ceasefire that the Palestinian president and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared in November.

"The next 48 hours will be decisive for determining which way the factions are going, and it will depend on Israel and whether it wants to stop its aggression," Abdel-Hakim Awad, a spokesman for Abbas's Fatah faction, told Reuters.

Fatah's Al-Aqsa Brigades, however, said any truce should include both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Israel has already rebuffed calls for a ceasefire, instead campaigning for international pressure on the Hamas-led government to back down. There has been talk of dispatching foreign peacekeepers to Gaza.