Israeli forces abduct seven Palestinians: students, villagers, and resistance member

Ma’an – Israeli soldiers stepped out of a Mercedes with Palestinian license plates at 2 a.m. and forcibly entered the home of an Islamic Jihad leader in the village of Arraba Thursday morning, the man's family said.

Tareq Qadan, a leader of the Islamist resistance movement in the northern West Bank district of Jenin, was taken from his home in his night clothes by five Israeli soldiers and shoved into the unmarked car parked outside the two-story building, witnesses described.

The man's sister said Qadan opened the door to his home when he heard shouts from outside. As soon as the door opened, she said, "five soldiers broke into the house and took his wife into one room, and my brother outside."

She added Qadan had asked to see his ailing mother before he was taken away, and to notify his brother that he should keep watch over the elderly woman.

"They refused his request and took him in his pajamas," his sister said.

An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed that there was one detention operation carried out in the village, and declined comment on the nature of the arrest and use of an unmarked vehicle.

This is the 12th time Qadan has been detained. He has spent over ten years in Israeli custody, is married and a father of five, with children aged between two to 12.

A second arrest operation was reported in Siris village, just south of the Jenin district in the northern Tulkarem governorate. Two were detained in the raid, and were identified by local officials as university student Tareq Nazih and Iyad Fathi Barahmeh.

East of Tulkarem in the Nablus district, officials said a young man from the village of Beita was also detained, after his home was surrounded by Israeli troops.

Local sources said the home was entered, searched and Akram Abdul Rahman Mu’allah, 26, was detained and taken to an unknown location.

An Israeli military statement said seven Palestinians were detained from the West Bank overnight. They were all identified as "suspects," and the statement said they were "transferred for security questioning."