Hamas PA Government Members Behind Bars

From Arutz Sheva:

Hamas says Israel has declared war on the Palestinian Authority, after more than 60 senior Hamas figures, including many members of the PA government, were arrested overnight.

The precisely-coordinated operations were executed in Ramallah, Jenin, Jerusalem, Shechem, Kalkilyeh, Bethlehem, Hevron and other towns throughout Judea and Samaria, starting shortly after midnight.

Among those captured in simultaneous operations in many PA cities are members of the PA government and parliament, and senior Hamas movement leaders.

Israel emphasized that the arrests were not in order to obtain "trading cards" in exchange for the abducted soldier Gilad Shalit, but were rather routine police arrests of criminals suspected of membership in a terrorist organization.

Among those in Israeli custody as of Thursday morning are: Nasser A-Din Sha'ar, deputy to Hamas Authority government head Ismail Haniyeh; Muhammed Barghouti, minister of labor; Khaled Abu-Arfa, minister for Jerusalem affairs; Muhammed Abu-Tir and Mahmoud Atwan, the PA legislators in Jerusalem who were instructed by Israeli authorities in May to either leave the city or quit Hamas; as well as many other PA government members and most of the members of the Jerusalem-Ramallah area Hamas faction in the Palestinian Authority legislature.