*UPDATES WITH PALESTINIAN JOURNALISTS SYNDICATE'S REACTION
By Abdelraouf Arnaout
RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA) – Twenty Palestinians were arrested in overnight Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank, according to the Israeli military on Monday.
The individuals were detained for “suspected involvement in popular terrorist activities”, the army said in a statement without elaborating on the nature of said activities.
According to the statement, four journalists working for Al-Quds television were among those rounded up in the raids.
Earlier this month, Israeli authorities designated Al-Quds television as a “terrorist group”.
The detainees have since been remanded into custody for further investigation, the statement added.
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicated, for its part, decried the arrests as a “new aggression on the Palestinian press”.
“The arrest of journalists is part of the ongoing and open war launched by the [Israeli] occupation on the Palestinian freedom of speech and an attempt to hide its crimes against the Palestinian people,” it said in a statement.
“This new crime…requires an urgent and effective international action to punish the occupation and force it to respect international laws,” it added.
The Israeli army frequently carries out sweeping arrest campaigns across the occupied West Bank on the pretext of searching for “wanted” Palestinians.
According to Palestinian figures, approximately 6,500 Palestinians are currently languishing in Israeli prisons, including scores of women and some 350 minors.
