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JERUSALEM (Ma’an) -- Israeli forces on Thursday detained the head of the Palestinian Legislative Council Aziz Dweik at a checkpoint near Jerusalem, witnesses said.

Israeli soldiers handcuffed and blindfolded Dweik and took him to an unknown destination, witnesses told Ma'an.

An Israeli military spokesman had no immediate comment on the report.

Some 23 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council are currently imprisoned in Israel, according to the prisoner rights group Addameer.

Twenty of the elected officials are being held in administrative detention without charge or trial.

Almost 5,000 Palestinians, including 132 minors, are held in Israeli jails, a practice which violates international law.