Daily Times

JERUSALEM: Four Palestinians have been detained by their security forces after attending a religious festival in a nearby Jewish settlement, a Palestinian security official said Friday.

Around 30 Palestinians from two neighbouring villages visited a celebration in the occupied West Bank settlement of Efrat on Wednesday, Oded Revivi of the YESHA settlers council told AFP. In total more than 100 people attended, including senior Israeli military and police officers, he said, as part of celebrations for the annual Jewish festival of Sukkot.

On Thursday, four men were called in for questioning by Palestinian security forces, a security spokesman told AFP. They were still detained on Friday afternoon. “We heard from our neighbours they had received (summonses) for interrogation,” Revivi told AFP. He said the men were senior figures in the local Palestinian villages of Wadi al-Nis and Al-Khadar.

In an interview with Israeli army radio, Mohammed Taha, deputy governor of the nearby town of Bethlehem, said it was against Palestinian law to normalise relations with Israeli settlements. While Palestinians were free to talk to Israelis, “it is unacceptable, going inside (a settlement) is unacceptable”, he said.

Ofir Gendelman, spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Twitter the incident showed the Palestinian leadership “tells the world it wants peace but in reality it arrests and threatens Palestinians who support neighbourly relations with Israelis.” Israel seized the West Bank in 1967 in a move never recognised by the international community. More than 400,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, considered by the international community one of the largest obstacles to peace.