Israeli forces have carried out large-scale overnight raids into several areas across the occupied West Bank, arresting a 59-year-old mother released from the occupying regime’s detention in November as part of a deal to exchange a group of Palestinian prisoners for a batch of captives held in the Gaza Strip.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa, citing local sources speaking on condition of anonymity, reported that Israeli troopers broke into the family home of Hanan al-Barghouti, the sister of Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, in the northern West Bank village of Kobar early on Tuesday.
They violently ransacked the residents and damaged personal belongings there.
The occupation forces also abducted Iman Nafeh, Nael al-Barghouti’s wife.
Five others, most of them members of the extended Barghouti clan, were also arrested during a raid on the Ramallah-area village, Wafa noted.
Hanan Barghouti was the oldest detainee released by Israeli authorities in November, according to local media outlets.
Upon her release, she was recorded waving a Hamas flag and praising the Gaza-based resistance group and asserted to defiantly dismiss a warning she would be re-arrested.
Her brother, Nael, has been in prison for more than four decades. He had previously been released under a prisoner swap deal between Hamas and Israel. However, he was re-arrested in 2014 and his sentence was reinstated.
His lawyer filed a petition with the so-called Israeli High Court, demanding Barghouti’s release based on the terms of the prisoner swap deal which states that Israel cannot re-arrest freed prisoners and reinstate their sentences.
Israel has ramped up its aggression in the West Bank since its genocidal war on Gaza began in early October.
At least 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank since October 7, when Israel waged the war on Gaza after Hamas carried out a historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for its intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
The Israeli aggression has so far killed at least 30,631 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 72,043 others in Gaza. The Tel Aviv regime has imposed a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water to the more than two million Palestinians living there.
