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by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News Report post

Two brothers were abducted from their home in a village near Ramallah, and two other men were taken into custody by Israeli troops at the Qalandia checkpoint overnight.

The brothers were abducted from the village of Deir Nitham, northwest of Ramallah, before dawn on Saturday. They were identified as Qadri Tamimi, 20, and his older brother Mustafa Tamimi, 27.

Mustafa Tamimi is an officer with the Palestinian police in the Hebron area, in the southern part of the West Bank.

The father of the two men, Abdel-Hafeedh Tamimi, told reporters that the soldiers stormed into their home while the family was sleeping, terrifying all the occupants and ransacking their belongings.

A third brother, Adham, was abducted by Israeli forces two months ago and is still being held in Israeli detention and interrogated without any charges having been brought against him.

Their father told reporters with the Ma’an News Agency that his sons were ‘brutally assaulted’ before being taken by Israeli troops.

The family has also been targeted with an Israeli demolition order on their home, issued in February, under the pretext that the home was built without a permit. No permits have been granted for Palestinian homes since the Israeli military began its military occupation of all of historic Palestine in 1967.

In addition, two men were abducted at the Qalandia checkpoint, which is the main checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah. They were identified as Shafiq Wajih Awwad and Samed Emteir.

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RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces detained two Palestinians at a checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah overnight, a Palestinian rights group said Saturday.

The Palestinian Prisoner's Society said in a statement that Israeli forces arrested Shafiq Wajih Awwad and Samed Emteir at the Qalandia checkpoint overnight.

An Israeli military spokeswoman, however, said there were no arrests made at the checkpoint overnight.
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RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces detained two brothers from the town of Deir Nitham in northwest Ramallah on Saturday morning in a predawn raid.

The detainees' father Abd al-Hafith Tamimi told Ma'an that Israeli forces ransacked his home in the early dawn hours and detained his sons Qadri, 20 and Mustafa, 27.

Mustafa, he said, is an officer in the Palestinian liaison department in Hebron region.

Tamimi, who suffers from serious health troubles, highlighted that the Israeli soldiers "terrified" his family and "brutally assaulted his sons" before they detained them.

An Israeli military spokeswoman told Ma'an, however, that there were "no arrests" in Deir Netham overnight.

Israeli authorities detained Tamimi's third son Adham two months ago.

Israeli forces handed a demolition warrant to Tamimi in mid-February under the pretext that his house was built without a license in area classified as "C" according to the Oslo Accords.

Area C makes up about 61 percent of the occupied West Bank and is under full Israeli military control. Israel permits Palestinians to build on less than 1 percent of Area C land, according to UN figures.

Under the Oslo Accords, Area C was to be gradually transferred to Palestinian control within five years. But Israel has refused to withdraw its forces from the territory, citing security concerns and the absence of a final peace agreement.

The internationally recognized Palestinian territories of which the West Bank and East Jerusalem form a part have been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967.

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