Israel Arrests Over 120 Palestinian Activists
Israel has arrested more than 120 Palestinian activists suspected of carrying out attacks on Israelis in one of the largest such crackdowns ever, the military announced Saturday.
The arrests were made in the Israeli-occupied territories, and more arrests were expected, the military said in a statement.
The arrests of members of the outlawed Muslim fundamentalist group Hamas included a four-member cell suspected of abducting and killing an Israeli border policeman last December, the army said.
That killing prompted Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to deport more than 400 suspected Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists to Lebanon last year, an action condemned by the U.N. Security Council.
“This group focused on kidnaping policemen and soldiers for bargaining purposes and then murdering them when this did not succeed,” the army statement said. “Dozens of more arrests are expected in the sweep.”
Suspects told their interrogators that other attacks against Israelis had been planned but were foiled by the sealing of Israeli-occupied Arab territories imposed in March following a rash of attacks, the army said.
The statement gave no other details of the sweep.
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