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Israel Detains Key Palestinian

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Times Staff Writer

Israeli forces arrested the speaker of the Palestinian parliament early today in the West Bank, adding to the more than two dozen members of the Hamas government in custody.

Israeli vehicles surrounded the Ramallah home of Aziz Dweik and took him in for questioning, an army spokesman said.

“They’ve been looking for him for a long time -- ever since the capture of the Israeli soldier,” Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad said. “Israel is a state above the law. There’s no point in even questioning why. They do whatever they want.”

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Israeli forces began rounding up members of the Hamas government shortly after Palestinian militant groups staged a cross-border ambush on June 25 outside the Gaza Strip, killing two Israeli soldiers and capturing a third. Cpl. Gilad Shalit is believed to be in captivity somewhere in the Gaza Strip.

Israel responded with a series of airstrikes, tank offensives and nightly artillery bombardments in Gaza; the United Nations estimates the offensive has killed more than 170 Palestinians. Israeli forces also rounded up Hamas officials in the West Bank.

Five ministers and 21 members of parliament are in Israeli custody, Hamad said.

An Israeli army spokesman said: “We consider Hamas a terrorist organization.... Any member of Hamas is a target for arrest, and we’ll conduct the arrests at our own discretion.”

Dweik will be questioned and then “it will be decided later if he’ll be charged,” said the spokesman, who would not give his name.

Several Palestinian ministers have been released after periods of detention.

Minister of Planning Samir abu Eisheh was released in mid-July, and Prisoners’ Affairs Minister Wasfi Kibha was freed Wednesday by an Israeli military court judge. Neither was formally charged, and Kibha, in an interview after his release, described 12-hour interrogation sessions that were interrupted only by the sirens warning of a potential Hezbollah rocket attack.

All of the arrests have taken place outside Gaza, a narrow coastal strip teeming with fighters from a variety of militant groups.

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Any attempt to arrest a minister or parliament member in Gaza probably would be met with fierce resistance -- making it a comparatively safe zone for the Hamas government.

However, although “Gaza is harder,” Hamad said, “the ministers here are still under threat of assassination.”

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has continued to keep a high public profile in Gaza, regularly giving Friday sermons. He spoke Friday night at an outdoor wedding celebration for 200 couples.

But Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar has gone underground, rarely appearing in public since Israeli warplanes bombed the Foreign Ministry in mid-July.

Haniyeh issued a statement decrying Dweik’s arrest as “an act of piracy.”

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