Israeli police Monday apprehended a Hamas lawmaker, Ahmad Attoun, outside the Red Cross office in East Jerusalem, where he had taken refugee more than a year ago to avoid arrest, a witness said.
Another Hamas lawmaker and a top party official were also arrested. Israel regards Hamas as a terrorist organization and regards East Jerusalem as part of its sovereign territory, despite Palestinian demands that it form the capital of their future state, dpa reported.
Israel had threatened to send the three Hamas leaders to the West Bank following an interior ministry decision to revoke their Jerusalem residency after they ran for seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council, in 2006.
According to the witness, undercover Israeli agents, one of them dressed as a veiled Muslim woman, provoked a scene outside the Red Cross office in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
Attoun came out of the building to see what was happening, and was quickly grabbed and spirited away. The other two, lawmaker Muhammad Totah and former minister of Jerusalem affairs, Khaled Abu Arafeh, remained inside but were also arrested.
A third Jerusalem Hamas lawmaker, Muhammad Abu Tir, was previously apprehended and expelled to the West Bank, but was last month arrested again while at home in the Ramallah area.