Israeli troops stationed at a military checkpoint near the Israeli army detention camp of Ofer located near the central West Bank city of Ramallah kidnapped a Palestinian woman going to the detention camp to visit her brother on Thursday midday.
Samira Al Fawaghrah, 25, from the village of Jorat Al Sham’a near Bethlehem city, was going to visit her brother after not having seen him for several years; witnesses at the checkpoint said soldiers forced Samira into an Israeli army vehicle and took her to unknown destination.
By the end of last week the number of Palestinians kidnapped and forced into detention camps since the beginning of this year had risen to 1,062. There are currently around 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli detention camps, the majority held without charge.
The Israeli army tends to kidnap family members of Palestinian political prisoners to use them during interrogation to put pressure on the detainees. Ex-detainees report that during their interrogation by the Israeli secret police, Israeli agents kidnapped their wives or sisters and threatened to rape them if the detainee do not cooperate, in a move that has been widely condemned by Israeli and international human rights groups.
