Israeli forces arrest senior Hamas leader in occupied West Bank

Israeli military forces have arrested a high-ranking leader of the Palestinian Hamas resistance movement during a raid in the southern part of the occupied West Bank, in the latest upsurge of violence in the region.

Local sources said large numbers of Israeli forces conducted a raid early on Monday on the city of Dura, located eleven kilometers (6.8 miles) southwest of al-Khalil, and broke into a house to apprehend Sheikh Rizq Rajoub.

Rajoub’s arrest came eight months after his last release from Israeli prisons, where he spent 19 months in administrative detention.

In total, Rajoub has spent more than 28 years in Israeli custody.

In 2018, he refused to be deported to Sudan after being given two options, either to be deported outside Palestine or to serve an administrative detention sentence.

Rajoub reportedly suffers from different health problems, including vitiligo, and underwent several medical surgeries after spending long years behind Israeli bars.

Hamas official detention renewed

Also on Monday, an Israeli court extended the administrative detention of senior Hamas official Abdul-Jabbar Jarrar for an additional four months.

This was the fifth time that Israeli officials have renewed the administrative detention of Jarrar, a resident of the northern West Bank city of Jenin, according to his wife.

Wafa Jarrar said her husband was supposed to be released today, but an Israeli military court approved a request for the extension of his detention.

She pointed out that the so-called Israeli High Court of Justice had previously ordered Israeli authorities not to extend his administrative detention. 

She also said her husband suffered from hypertension and was transferred to the prison’s infirmary after he was notified of the decision to extend his detention.

There are reportedly more than 7,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Hundreds of inmates have been incarcerated under so-called administrative detention, without trial or charge.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to express outrage at their illegal detention.

Israeli prison authorities keep Palestinian prisoners under deplorable conditions without proper hygienic standards. Palestinian inmates have also been subject to systematic torture, harassment, and repression.

Palestinian prisoners to go on mass hunger strike in protest at Israel's repressive policies

Thousands of Palestinian prisoners are to stage a one-day hunger strike in protest at Israel

Human rights organizations say Israel continues to violate all rights and freedoms granted to prisoners by the Fourth Geneva Convention and international laws.

According to the Palestine Detainees Studies Center, around 60 percent of the Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails suffer from chronic diseases, a number of whom died in detention or after being released due to the severity of their cases.

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