Palestinian militant groups denounce detention of parliament speaker

(DPA)
Palestinian militant groups in Damascus denounced Sunday the detention of Palestinian parliament speaker, Aziz Dweik, by the Israeli military and called for his immediate release.

Palestinian eyewitnesses and security sources reported that an Israeli army force raided Dweik’s house in Ramallah’s al-Masayef neighbourhood around midnight Saturday and took him for questioning to a nearby Israeli army headquarters on the outskirts of Ramallah.

The Hamas movement, of which Dweik is a member, said his arrest is a new “hijack” operation in the record of “state terrorism” committed by Israel.

“The Zionist occupation forces committed a hijacking operation which constitutes a new scandal for this terrorist entity that commits state terrorism with support of the US and silence and conspiracy from Arabs and regional powers,” the group said in a statement sent to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The Democratic Front for Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) denounced the arrest of Dweik as proof of the “the barbaric nature of Israel” and called upon the international community to intervene to ensure his release and that of other Palestinian politicians detained by Israel.

On June 29, Israeli forces in the West Bank took into custody dozens of Hamas officials, including eight cabinet ministers.