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by IMEMC News

Early Thursday morning before dawn, Israeli troops invaded several parts of the West Bank and abducted five Palestinians — two married couples from Jerusalem, and a photojournalist from the village of Ni’lin.

According to the Palestinian Wafa News Agency, Israeli forces abducted on Thursday two Palestinian citizens and their wives from the town of Silwan, south of Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem.

The Wadi Hilweh Information Center told the Wafa reporters that Israeli occupation forces and intelligence stormed the town of Silwan at dawn and abducted Jawad Abu Sneineh and his wife, as well as Ahmad Rayyan and his wife, and transferred them to an investigation center in the city.

In the central West Bank, Israeli Occupation Forces abducted the photographer Hassan Dabbous, 30, after they raided his house in Ni’lin village, west of Ramallah.

According to local sources in the village, the Israeli soldiers raided the house of the photojournalist Hassan Dabbous, and searched the home, damaging and ransacking his property before abducting him and taking him to an unknown location for interrogation.

Ni’lin is known as a site of nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation, as is Silwan.

In recent years, Silwan has come under increasing attacks by Israeli forces as the Israeli colonial expansion project has taken steps to annex the land and property of the Palestinians living in the town.

Night raids in the early morning hours occur on a nightly basis in Palestine, as Israeli forces invade various areas and abduct Palestinians who are asleep in bed. Many of these abductees are then held incommunicado, without charges, in so-called ‘administrative detention’ for years on end.

Israeli authorities claim that administrative detention is necessary for ‘security reasons’, but the Palestinians who are stuck in Israeli prison in this limbo state are given no access to lawyers, no ability to mount a defense, since they are never told what the charges are against them. Holding prisoners without charge is a violation of international law.

In addition, abducting civilians from an Occupied Territory is a violation if Israel’s responsibilities as an Occupying Power under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

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