Israel Confirms Arrest Of Hamas Spokesman Hassan Yousef By Shin Bet In West Bank

JAKARTA - Israeli authorities confirmed the arrest of militant group spokesman Hamas Hassan Yousef in a raid on the West Bank on Thursday.

"Yousef was arrested on suspicion of acting on behalf of Hamas," Israel Security Agency Shin Bet told CNN on Friday, as quoted October 20.

Yousef is a prominent Palestinian political figure, serving as Hamas' official spokesman in the West Bank and holding a seat on the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Yousef has been arrested several times by Israeli forces. In total he has spent 24 years in Israeli prison on charges, ranging from sedition, entering Jerusalem without permission to becoming a member of Hamas.

Yousef himself often appears in international media. This week, in an interview with Canadian media The Globe and Mail he said he thought Hamas was ready to release about 200 hostages they detained if Israel agreed to a 24-hour ceasefire to allow aid to enter Gaza.

Previously, CNN reported that Yousef was believed to be among the more than 60 members of Hamas detained by Israel in a raid in the West Bank.

"The occupation forces arrested Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef from his home in Betunia, as part of a large-scale fishing campaign in the occupied West Bank," read a statement by the Palestinian Prisoners Club.

So far, as many as 850 Palestinians have been detained in the West Bank since the brutal Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club.

Those detained include lawmakers, prominent figures, journalists and former detainees who have served a long sentence in Israeli prisons.

Separately, Mustafa Barghouti, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative told CNN, "there is a massive Israeli operation to arrest Palestinians."

"Every night, they make more arrests. The number of Palestinian prisoners who are now in Israeli prisons reaches 6,300 people," Barghouti said.

"They are not prosecuted, not brought to justice. They are not undergoing legal proceedings and that is what they refer to as administrative detention, including no less than 200 children who are now in Israeli prisons," he said.