Abbas appeals to UN over arrests

By Ferry Biederman in Jerusalem and Roula Khalaf in London
Published: June 30 2006


Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, appealed to the United Nations yesterday to help obtain the release of dozens of lawmakers and cabinet ministers of the ruling Hamas movement seized by the Israeli army.

Mr Abbas's made the plea amid growing regional and international concern about the rapid escalation of the crisis sparked by last Sunday's kidnap of an Israeli soldier.

The Israeli army detained at least 64 Hamas representatives, 38 of them members of parliament, in the West Bank. Last night Israel said it planned to put the detained leaders "deemed sufficiently suspect of criminal activity" on trial under anti-terrorism legislation.

The Israeli army has massed outside the north of the strip, after having invaded the south on Wed­nes­day as Israel's defence minister, Amir Peretz, gave the green light for a broadening of the army's largest incursion into Gaza since the withdrawal last year.

But the expected push into the north was delayed yesterday, according to security officials, amid speculation that Egypt had requested more time for negotiations. Arab diplomats said Omar Suleiman, the head of Egyptian intelligence, was trying to obtain the release of the soldier.

Israel denied that the Hamas officials were being held as bargaining chips to secure the return of Corporal Gilad Shalit, kidnapped by several factions, including Hamas militants. But a spokesman for the military wing of Hamas called the action "blackmail". The European Union said it was "deeply concerned" by the humanitarian consequences of the Israeli action in Gaza. A power station that supplies much of the population with electricity and powers water pumps was knocked out by air strikes on Wednesday.

Foreign ministers of the Group of Eight industrialised nations, meeting in Moscow, said the mass det­ent­ion of Hamas officials raised "particular concerns", and urged Israel to exercise "utmost" restraint. But the lack of active mediation by the world community has made containment of the conflict all the more difficult.

With the US and European Union ostracising Hamas, the scope for diplomatic intervention has been limited. Israel has apparently felt under little pressure to restrain its actions, and has been acting on all fronts - with military strikes and incursions in Gaza, the detention of Hamas officials in the West Bank, and military flights over Damascus, home to some top Hamas leaders.

"There's no way an open international negotiation can take place with Hamas," said a European diplomat. "It's extremely complicated: how to climb down the ladder is the key issue for both of them."

Ehud Olmert, Israel's prime minister, has said it is not his intention to reoccupy Gaza but that the operation is aimed at freeing the kidnapped soldier.

The mass detention of Hamas officials has raised the pressure on Arab governments, which have been reluctant to help Hamas but cannot be seen to be ignoring the Palestinians.

Mohammed Mehdi Akef, the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, denounced the Cairo government yesterday for taking "a hesitant stance".

The Israeli army said it had found the body of a missing settler, 18-year-old Eliyahu Asheri, in a field near Ramallah. Security officials said they had arrested a member of the militant Popular Resistance Committees, who admitted participating in the killing. The group had threatened to kill Mr Asheri if Israel did not stop its incursion into Gaza. Yesterday a spokesman maintained that he had been killed as a response to the incursion, but security sources said he had apparently been killed on Sunday.