Israel Detains 130 Palestinians in Broad Action Against Hamas

The Israeli army detained more than 130 Palestinian men, women and teenagers in the West Bank on Tuesday in what the military described as one of the largest roundups of Hamas suspects in nearly three years of conflict.

Dozens of detainees were members of the Kawasme clan, an extended family in Hebron that has long been active in Hamas, according to Palestinian officials. An Israeli military source said some of those arrested may have had only indirect connections to the Palestinian militant group, such as being friends with suspected Hamas members or attending the same mosque.

The predawn sweep in the West Bank city came as Hamas weighed whether to agree to temporarily halt attacks against Israelis, a step that both sides suggested Tuesday could be imminent. Both also said the same thing in previous days.

The government of Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has indicated that it wants such a cease-fire in place before it moves ahead with key aspects of the American-backed peace plan called the “road map,” including Palestinian forces taking responsibility for security in areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip from which Israel would pull back its troops.

Since the inauguration of the initiative at a summit on June 4, the continuing confrontation between Israel and Hamas has played a central role in bogging down the plan. A Hamas suicide bomber blew up a bus in Jerusalem on June 11, killing 17 Israelis, and Israel has killed seven Hamas activists in the last two weeks, most recently on Saturday night in Hebron, when Israeli commandos ambushed a leader of the militant group.

The Israeli attacks have resulted in the deaths of more than a dozen passersby, and since the summit, Hamas has staged shooting attacks against Israeli soldiers and motorists.

Amid the wave of violence, little substantive progress has been made in implementing the peace plan. Israel has uprooted about a dozen illegal offshoots of West Bank Jewish settlements, as mandated by the plan, but others have been springing up to replace them. Settlers said they named one such outpost “Ariel Hill” -- a sardonic homage to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s onetime role as a patron of the settlement movement.

The final stages of the cease-fire deliberations were taking place in Egypt, which has been mediating between the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian militant groups. As the talks continue, pressure on Hamas has increased on several fronts.

An Israeli court Tuesday indicted five Israeli Arab political leaders on charges of funneling at least $6.8 million from Hamas-linked institutions abroad to the group’s activists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The case has inflamed tensions between the Israeli government and the state’s Arab minority, and several hundred Israeli Arabs, waving green Islamic banners, mounted an angry protest outside the courthouse in the northern city of Haifa.

At the same time, reports said Abbas’ government had asked the European Union to blacklist Hamas’ political wing as a terrorist organization -- a step that would make it easier to choke off funding to the group. The Bush administration has also urged Arab and European nations to stem the cash flow to Hamas, some of which comes through Islamic charitable associations.

In Hebron, Israeli forces including paratroopers and special operations commandos backed by tanks made the bulk of their arrests in a district bordered by three mosques that have been prime recruiting grounds for Hamas.

Abdullah Kawasme, the Hamas leader who was slain Saturday night by Israeli special operations troops, was said by Israel to have headed the local Hamas cell and to have recruited several suicide bombers from among his relatives.

Witnesses said Tuesday’s detainees included the parents of several suicide bombers and the wives, sisters and teenage brothers of some known Hamas members. Palestinian television showed footage of blindfolded and handcuffed men, some appearing old and infirm, being loaded into army trucks and taken to an Israeli base on the outskirts of town for questioning.

An Israeli military source acknowledged that authorities had intended to cast the widest possible net.

“It was a large operation meant to gather information about those who have had anything at all to do with any terror activity, or have any knowledge of it,” the source said.

Those picked up did not have to be suspected of direct involvement with the group, he said. Some were taken for questioning because of an indirect connection to suspected Hamas members, such as being related to one, praying at the same mosque or having friends or associates in common.

The mayor of Hebron, Mustafa Natsheh, called some of the arrests arbitrary, and Nabil Shaath, the Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister, called the Israeli sweep “an escalation aimed at destroying the [peace plan] and wrecking efforts to calm the situation.”

One of those arrested was 17-year-old Mutaz Kawasme, a cousin of Fuad Kawasme, a Hamas member who carried out a shooting in May.

“He was sitting up late studying for exams when a soldier pointed his gun at him from outside the window and yelled at him to open the door,” his father, Rashad, said by telephone Tuesday night. The teenager was released after several hours of questioning, his family said.

Palestinians expressed fears that the roundup could be a prelude to Israeli attempts to deport relatives or associates of bombers to the Gaza Strip, a tactic that Israel has used in a small number of cases.

Throughout the intifada, or uprising, families of suicide bombers have been subject to a variety of punitive measures, including having their homes demolished.

Separately, about 20 Palestinians were detained overnight in and around the West Bank cities of Nablus, Jenin and Ramallah, the army said. But the arrests were not aimed at Hamas’ infrastructure, as the Hebron action was.

Even if Hamas agrees to a truce, it will not necessarily amount to a breakthrough for the peace plan.

Israeli officials have repeatedly said they will not accept a deal that calls for Hamas to halt attacks only inside Israel proper, allowing the group to continue targeting soldiers and Jewish settlers. Israeli officials are also worried that Hamas and other military groups might use the hiatus to regroup and rearm and then resume attacks.

Hamas has also demanded guarantees that Israel halt so-called targeted killings of its leaders, a promise that Sharon has been unwilling to make despite American concern over the timing of the recent strikes.

The head of the Israeli air force, which has undertaken many of those strikes with helicopter-fired missiles, told journalists that no order to halt such operations had been given.

“In the case of ‘ticking bombs,’ we will continue,” said Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz, referring to militants believed to be actively planning or preparing to carry out suicide bombings or other attacks.

At least one other militant group, the relatively small Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has said it will not abide by a truce.

Israel insists that under the peace plan, the Palestinian Authority is expected to disarm and dismantle Palestinian extremist groups, but Abbas has been unwilling to launch a wide-ranging crackdown, saying it would amount to civil war.

Both sides have been trying to secure some progress ahead of the visit of national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, who is expected to arrive Saturday.

A cease-fire with Hamas could clear the way for progress in separate Israeli-Palestinian talks on the Palestinians assuming control of security in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank town of Bethlehem. The two sides have not been able to agree on whether Israeli troops would retain control of Gaza’s main north-south road.

Palestinians say Israeli checkpoints that involve tanks along Gaza’s main artery have made it impossible for people to get to work and attend school.