Israel Arrests 2 Militants in Palestinian-Controlled Area

Israeli special forces entered a Palestinian area in the West Bank on Friday night and seized two local militia leaders, Palestinian officials said.

The two were arrested in the neighborhood of Um Sharayat, on the outskirts of Ramallah, which lies within the region labeled “Area A” in interim peace deals, meaning that it is under exclusive Palestinian control.

“We condemn this gross violation of Palestinian sovereignty,” said Col. Rubhi Arafat, a Palestinian official responsible for coordination with the Israeli army.

Palestinian security officials said the two men, Jad Nalhi and Hussam Rabiha, were local leaders of the Tanzim militia, an armed faction of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, and had organized numerous shooting attacks targeting the Jewish settlement of Psagot, near Ramallah, and Israeli motorists.

There was no comment on the arrests from the Israeli army.

Earlier, a leading Islamic militant killed in an explosion attributed to Israel was buried in the West Bank town of Janin. Eight men in white robes, which were meant to symbolize the death shrouds of suicide bombers, carried the flag-draped body of Iyad Hardan through the streets, followed by about 5,000 mourners clamoring for revenge.

Hardan was killed Thursday when a public phone he was using exploded. He belonged to the Islamic Jihad group, which has carried out a series of attacks in Israel in recent months.