Israel arrests sisters of late senior Hamas leader in West Bank

By Awad Rajoub

RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA) - The Israeli army on Sunday arrested two sisters of Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri, who was assassinated in Beirut earlier this month.

“On Saturday night, the occupation army arrested Dalal and Fatima Al-Arouri, the sisters of the martyr Saleh Al-Arouri, after it conducted searches in their homes in Ramallah Governorate and the city of Al-Bireh in the central West Bank,” Amani Farajneh, media coordinator for the Palestinian Prisoners Society, told Anadolu.

Dalal was arrested from her family's home in the town of Arura, northwest of Ramallah, while Fatima was arrested from her home in the Al-Shorfa neighborhood in the city of Al-Bireh,” Farajneh added.

Palestinian group Hamas said on Jan. 2 that its deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri was assassinated in an Israeli attack in Lebanon's capital Beirut.

The Israeli army also arrested 15 workers from the Gaza Strip who were staying in the town of Biddya, west of the city of Salfit in the occupied West Bank, according to official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The agency indicated that the workers were in the Biddya municipality building, after Israel expelled them from their workplaces after Oct. 7.

Since the outbreak of the war on Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, the Israeli army has intensified its military operations in the West Bank.

The Israeli escalation in the West Bank has resulted in the killing of 347 Palestinians with 4,000 others injured, including 593 children, since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

About 5,850 Palestinians have also been arrested since Oct. 7, according to prisoner affairs institutions.

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group which Tel Aviv claims killed 1,200 people in Israel.

At least 23,843 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and 60,317 injured, according to Palestinian health authorities.

According to the UN, 85% of the population of Gaza is already internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure is damaged or destroyed.

* Writing by Ikram Kouachi