PA Reports IDF Arrested Arab Suspects Despite Breakdown in Cooperation

Despite the fact that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas last week severed all cooperation with Israel in protest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration of his intent to impose sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria, WAFA, the official news agency of the Ramallah regime, on Sunday reported that Israeli forces detained “at least three” Arabs from the southern districts of Hebron and Bethlehem. WAFA cited local security sources.

Director of the Muslim side of the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron Sheikh Hafthi Abu Sneina confirmed that Israeli forces “rounded up” one Arab “after beating him up at the entrance of the mosque and another from the old city of Hebron.”

Meanwhile, IDF soldiers manning the Container checkpoint northeast of Bethlehem stopped and detained an Arab resident of al-Khader, south of Bethlehem.

The nature of the reported arrests suggest that they were the result of individual outbursts which were contained by local security, and not raids that take place during the night and in the past required cooperation with the PA security forces. So that Israeli reports about a lull in IDF and Shin Bet activities in picking up terror suspects still hold true.

Incidentally, the lull in arrests is likely to harm the PA before it harms Israel, seeing as so many of the arrested terror suspects belong to Hamas and are the enemies of the PLO.

Finally: how do you round up one Arab?