BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AFP) — Palestinian security forces arrested 14 members of the Islamist Hamas movement on Saturday in dawn raids across the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a Palestinian security official said.
"We arrested them in order to question them about their membership of the Executive Force and about plots to undertake actions that endanger the security situation," the official told AFP.
The Executive Force is a Hamas-run paramilitary group that polices the Gaza Strip, where the Islamists seized power in June after routing forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in a week of bloody clashes.
Hamas confirmed the arrests in a statement released to local media, saying one of its members had been detained in the southern city of Hebron and the rest in and around the northern commercial hub of Nablus.
Security forces loyal to Abbas have arrested scores of Hamas members in the West Bank as part of a major crackdown in the wake of the movement's takeover of the Gaza Strip.
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