by Our Foreign Desk

PALESTINIAN Authority forces in the West Bank arrested 108 Hamas members yesterday, alleging that they were planning attacks on Israeli settlers and security forces.

The authority’s security spokesman Adnan Dameri said: “We will not let Hamas undermine our security and draw our country to bloodshed. We will not let Hamas carry out attacks in the West Bank.”

Hamas spokesman Husam Badran said that the arrests were meant to stop the recent spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis.

In a statement, he accused Palestinian security forces of working for Israel and said the militant group held President Mahmoud Abbas personally responsible, adding that Hamas would continue attacks against Israeli occupiers in the West Bank.

In Gaza, Hamas published the names of 108 of its members who had been detained.

The raid was the largest mass arrest in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories since 2007, when the Fatah party overthrew the recently elected Hamas government in the West Bank, leaving it controlling only Gaza.

Those events preceded the 2008 and 2014 Israeli bombardments of Gaza, which killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians.

Yesterday, the UN Human Rights Council backed calls for accountability in last year’s conflict in Gaza, adding to pressure for war crimes prosecutions before the International Criminal Court.

Israel condemned the council’s intervention, saying it was one-sided and ignored the fact that Israel was conducting its own investigations into possible wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian boy who was among a group throwing stones at their vehicle.