Israel Arrests Dozens of Hamas Suspects

Israeli soldiers swept through a West Bank city on Tuesday, arresting dozens of suspected Hamas activists, as Palestinian officials awaited a response from the Islamic militant group about a proposal to suspend attacks against Israelis.

Also Tuesday, leaders of the Israeli Arab Islamic Movement were indicted on charges of helping Hamas through illegal transfers of millions of dollars.

There was growing expectation that Hamas would accept a moratorium on attacks against Israel – an idea which optimists viewed as a means of winding down 33 months of Mideast violence, but which skeptics in Israel feared would be a temporary lull in which Hamas would regroup for more violence.

And even the temporary truce was far from guaranteed. Hamas has walked away from seemingly promising truce efforts in the past, and the violence and recriminations that have accompanied the weeks of talks between Hamas and Palestinian officials have added a measure of uncertainty.

Still, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said Tuesday in Cairo, “There is a feeling of optimism that something like this (a truce) will be announced in the next few days.”

And Israel Radio quoted a senior Israeli military officer as telling legislators that Hamas would accept a three-month cease-fire in the West Bank and Gaza as well as in Israel proper – a key Israeli demand which meant settlers and soldiers would also not face attack. The report could not be confirmed.

But a Palestinian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that while Hamas may in principle accept a truce, it was setting conditions that Israel may not accept.

Israel – which in any case prefers a Palestinian crackdown on the militant groups – appears ready to scale down targeted killings of militants, but is unlikely to agree to other demands raised by some Hamas spokesman, such as a release of the thousands of militants jailed in Israel.

Israel is also insisting that the cease-fire period be used to dismantle the militant groups – as is called for in the U.S.-backed “road map” peace plan – but Hamas leaders said they would not lay down their arms.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas favors dialogue to secure a cease-fire, rejecting a crackdown because, he fears, it might trigger a civil war. Also, he says, Palestinian security has been decimated by repeated Israeli attacks and would be unable to confront Hamas head-on.

However, the road map, sponsored by the so-called Quartet of the United States, European Union, Russia and United Nations, calls for “dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure,” including “confiscation of illegal weapons and consolidation of security authority.”

The plan, which also calls on Israel to freeze all settlement construction in the West Bank and Gaza, is to lead to a Palestinian state in 2005.

But attacks on Israelis by militants and military strikes against them by Israel have bedeviled implementation since U.S. President George W. Bush formally launched the plan at a summit in Jordan on June 4. Despite its limitations and Israeli reservations, a declared truce could provide an opportunity for movement.

In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Mahmoud Zahar said that “nobody will give up his arms for anybody till the finishing of the (Israeli) occupation” and that if Abbas’ forces tried to disarm the militants thousands would “will demonstrate, will throw stones, will shout.”

Israel, meanwhile, kept up pressure on the group. In an overnight sweep through the West Bank city of Hebron, Israeli soldiers rounded up about 130 Palestinians suspected of links with Hamas, the military said.

On June 11, a Hamas suicide bomber from Hebron blew up a bus in Jerusalem, killing 17 passengers and bystanders, and on Saturday, Israeli soldiers shot and killed the Hamas leader in Hebron, Abdullah Kawasme.

The detainees, including relatives of Hamas suicide bombers and Kawasme’s sister-in-law, were taken to an Israeli base on the outskirts of Hebron. They sat in a large, open-sided tent, handcuffed and blindfolded, and were taken in groups into a nearby building for interrogation.

Adnan Kawasme, 17, a relative of the slain Hamas leader, said troops came to his house and used rifle butts to shove him. The high school student said he was released after eight hours.

In the northern Israeli port city of Haifa, meanwhile, a leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Sheik Raed Salah, and four others were charged with funneling money to Hamas and having contacts with an Iranian agent in Lebanon.

The 12-count indictment, filed in the Haifa District Court, said Salah and the other defendants transferred at least $6.8 million from Hamas institutions abroad to Hamas activists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Hundreds of Arabs, many of them carrying green Islamic banners, protested outside the Haifa courthouse. Several Israeli Arab leaders have said the trial is meant to intimidate Israel’s 1.2 million-strong Arab community, almost a fifth of the nation’s population.

“It is meant to silence the entire (Israeli) Arab community,” Salah shouted as he entered court.

Torn for decades between their Israeli citizenship and Arab heritage, many Israeli Arabs have been radicalized by the violence, identifying strongly with the Palestinians.