Israelis detain Palestinian minister

Israeli police detained the Palestinian Authority's minister for Jerusalem affairs on Apr. 6. It was the first time Israel had arrested a member of the Hamas-led government since it first sat last week. Khaled Abu Arafa and his bodyguard were taken into custody at a checkpoint on their way into Izzariya, a suburb of Jerusalem within the Palestinian-controlled West Bank. Israel Radio said the 45-year-old politician had been arrested because, as a resident of Israeli-controlled Arab East Jerusalem, he is banned from entering the West Bank carrying an Israeli identification card. Arafa is a cabinet member of the Hamas-led government, but stood as an independent in January's elections. His predecessor as minister, Ziad Abu Ziad, said Arafa had been on his way to the PA's Jerusalem affairs office in Izzariya to receive supplies and furniture from the former administration. Ahmed Jalajel, a photographer for the Al-Quds daily newspaper who was with Arafa at the time, told the Associated Press: "They asked us for ID, they said: 'Get out.' He said: 'I am not getting out.' They opened the car and pushed him out. "They asked him to sit down on the ground, and then they checked the IDs. They asked him to get into their jeep. He refused, then they pushed him into the jeep." The Palestinian cabinet spokesman, Ghazi Hamad, told Reuters that Israel was undermining the work of the new Palestinian government. "The arrest of a cabinet minister proves the falseness of Israel's arguments that it seeks peace," he said.