Israeli police officers detain Hamas minister

Israeli border police detained a cabinet minister from Hamas on Thursday, Hamas officials and the witness said.

The incident is the first time Israel has taken into custody a member of the Hamas government since the Islamic militants took power last week.

Khaled Abu Arafa, minister of Jerusalem affairs, was detained along with his bodyguard when he was on his way to Izzariya, a West Bank suburb of Jerusalem. Abu Arafa was to sign off on furniture and office equipment from his predecessor, Ziad Abu Zayyad, a moderate.

Paramilitary police stopped Abu Arafa's car at a checkpoint at the entrance to Izzariya, said Ahmed Jalajel, a photographer for the Arabic Al-Quds daily, who was in the car with the minister when he was taken into custody.

"They asked us for ID, they said 'get out.' He (Abu Arafa) said 'I am not getting out.' They opened the car and pushed him out," Jalajel told The Associated Press. "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," Jalajel said, adding that he tried to take a picture but the security forces broke his camera.

Israeli defense officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed Abu Arafa had been taken into custody.

It appears Abu Arafa was arrested for trying to open the office. Part of Izzariya is in Jerusalem, which is at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel claims the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians want the eastern half for the capital of a future state.

Abu Arafa, a Jerusalem resident born in 1961, has been detained several times by Israel in the past.

Abu Zayyad, the former minister of Jerusalem affairs, said members of Abu Arafa's entourage informed him of the detention. He said the two were to meet so Abu Zayyad could hand-over the supplies that belong to the Palestinian Authority.

The Jerusalem affairs office has been in the West Bank for several years because interim Israeli-Palestinian peace accords bar the Palestinian Authority from opening offices in the disputed city, Abu Zayyad said.
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