Israel Detains 30 Hamas Officials

Israel today launched fresh air strikes and arrested more than 30 Hamas officials in response to persistent rocket attacks from Gaza.

Israeli defense forces struck the offices of money changers and businesses in the Gaza Strip that it said have been transferring funds from Iran, Syria and Lebanon for the funding of terrorist activities executed by Hamas and other groups.

"Millions of dollars has been transferred each month to terror organizations in the Gaza Strip, which has enabled the purchase and manufacture of weaponry and the carrying out of attacks against Israeli civilians, including Qassam (rocket) launchings," the IDF said.

In its roundup of senior Hamas officials, Israel arrested the education minister, Nasser Shaer, considered a pragmatist in the movement.

His wife Huda said soldiers knocked on the door of their home in the West Bank city of Nablus and took him away.

"I asked them 'why are you taking him?' The officer said 'we have orders'," she told Reuters.

Israeli forces also seized at least three Hamas MPs, the mayor and deputy mayor of Nablus and other Hamas officials in neighboring towns and villages, Hamas officials said.

Israel conducted a similar operation last year against Hamas ministers and MPs in the West Bank that drew international criticism.

Hamas, whose leaders include the Palestinian prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, accuses Israel and the west of siding with president Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction.

The arrests and air strikes came after Hamas rebuffed Mr Abbas's call for a halt to rocket attacks by Gaza militants on Israeli towns.

The Islamist group and others said they would only consider a halt in rocket attacks if Israel first called off all of its military operations in Gaza and the West Bank.

Israel has rebuffed similar demands in the past, arguing its West Bank operations are essential in preventing militant attacks.

Israel's attacks on Gaza come on top of internecine fighting between Hamas Islamists and Mr Abbas's secular Fatah faction in the past week that has left 50 Palestinians dead.

The fighting has left a two-month unity government between the two factions in tatters.

Israeli air strikes have killed at least 35 Palestinians over the past eight days. Over the same period, Israel says some 200 rockets have been launched into its territory, killing a woman, injuring dozens and causing significant damage to property.

The Quartet of Middle East peace mediators is scheduled to meet in Berlin on May 30 amid the upsurge of violence in the Middle East, not just in Gaza, but also in Lebanon.

"We are greatly concerned about the latest violence and escalation in the Gaza Strip and in parts of Lebanon," a German foreign ministry spokesman said yesterday.

The meeting of Quartet members - the EU, Russia, the UN and the US - will follow a gathering of G8 foreign ministers on the same day in Potsdam.