When is a mass arrest of Palestinians not news in the UK? When they’re arrested by the PA

The campaign, in which more than 330 Palestinians have been arrested over 10 days, began after the three Israeli teenagers, Gil-Ad Shaer,16, Naftali Fraenkel,16 and Eyal Yifrach, 19, went missing near a West Bank settlement with Israel stating that they had been abducted by the militant Hamas movement.

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But leading Israeli human-rights groups voiced concerns that the military is carrying out “collective punishment” of the Palestinian civilian population and said many of the army operations had no apparent connection to the kidnappings.

The Telegraph also reported on the crackdown (30 new arrests as Israel presses West Bank hunt for hostage teens, June 20):

Times of London similarly informed readers of the manhunt in the West Bank (Hamas crackdown as Israel retaliates over teens’ kidnap, June 19th).

Israel intensified its clampdown in the West Bank yesterday, arresting another 65 people as part of a hunt for three teenagers kidnapped last week.

As the search entered its sixth day, Israeli security forces locked down large parts of the West Bank, and detained dozens of alleged members of Hamas, the Palestinian faction that it blames for the abductions.

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Since the searches began early last Friday, troops have arrested 240 Palestinians, searched more than 800 locations and raided ten Hamas-run institutions, the army said.    

Yet, all four publications have thus far failed to report on a mass roundup of Hamas members in the West Bank launched by Palestinian Authority security forces since Thursday. The arrests have been reported by other major news sites, including the The New York Times.

According to Times of Israel journalist Avi Issacharoff, PA forces “have arrested 240 Palestinians, searched more than 800 locations and raided ten Hamas-run institutions”.  Those arrested by the PA have included Muslim clerics, former prisoners and members of Hamas’s student body at al-Najah National University in Nablus.  

Associated Press reported that the latest PA roundup of suspected Hamas members late Thursday night represented “the biggest mass arrest in one night since 2007″.

The arrests have reportedly been motivated by recent terror attacks in the West Bank, as well as the increasing realization by PA President Mahmoud Abbas that the large Hamas infrastructure in Nablus and other cities threatens his rule.

Additionally, “human rights” groups who were quick to label the Israeli operation in the West Bank last year a form of “collective punishment” have thus far been silent on the large-scale security operation by the PA.  

A joint press release by Israeli, Palestinian and international NGO’s on June 22, 2014, called on the IDF to “refrain from collectively punishing the civilian Palestinian population”, a military operation it claimed was causing “disproportionate harm to the basic rights of Palestinians”.