Israel arrests 15 Palestinians in West Bank raids

By Aysar Alais

ISTANBUL (AA) – The Israeli army rounded up at least 15 more Palestinians in military raids in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, according to a prisoners’ affairs group.

A journalist was among the detainees in the raids that targeted the cities of Hebron, Bethlehem, Tulkarem, and Tubas, the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a statement.

“The raids were marked by widespread abuse, threats against detainees and their families and acts of vandalism and destruction on homes,” the statement said.

Tensions have been running high across the occupied West Bank amid a brutal Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has killed nearly 41,900 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since Oct. 7 last year.

At least 742 Palestinians have since been killed, more than 6,200 injured and over 11,100 others detained in the occupied territory, according to Palestinian figures.

"The occupation is waging a war of revenge against the detainees, 40 of whom have been killed since Oct. 7,” Qadura Fares, head of the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs, told a press conference in Ramallah in the West Bank.

“The detainees are being tortured in the Israeli occupation prisons,” he added.

The Israeli escalation follows a landmark opinion by the International Court of Justice last July that declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land unlawful and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

* Writing by Ikram Kouachi