RAMALLAH, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) — Palestinians slammed on Monday the Israeli police for arresting two Palestinian officials in East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian sources.
The sources said the Israeli police detained early on Monday Governor of Jerusalem Adnan Ghaith as well as the Deputy Secretary of Fatah Party Shadi Mutoor in Jerusalem.
According to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, Israeli forces beat Mutoor as they detained him.
Ghaith was detained several times since his appointment as governor of Jerusalem in June 2018. It is believed that his previous arrests were linked to activities against the sale of Palestinian houses and property in the Old City of East Jerusalem to Jewish settler organizations.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Detainees’ Commission said in a statement that Ghaith and Mutoor’s detention had been extended till the evening hours when they would appear in court over the charge of “practicing sovereignty in Jerusalem.”
Palestinian Jerusalem Affairs Minister Fadi Hidmi said the “crackdown against Fatah affiliates and activists in Jerusalem aims at undermining the Palestinian presence and sovereignty in the city.”
No Israeli source was available for comment on the arrests.
Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future independent state, while Israel wants all Jerusalem to be its eternal capital.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and declared the entire city as its eternal indivisible capital in 1980, but the move has never been recognized by most of the international community.
Originally published on http://www.xinhuanet.com