Over 40 Palestinians, including the governor of Jerusalem, were detained in a mass detention campaign launched by Israel throughout the occupied West Bank, Palestinian authorities said Monday.
Governor Adnan Ghaith was arrested in an Israeli raid on his home in the Silwan neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem, his spokesperson Mauruf al-Rifai told Anadolu Agency (AA).
He said Israeli forces did not provide any reason for the governor's arrest.
"We have been unable to communicate with him," he added.
According to the state news agency Wafa, Ghaith was detained more than 17 times by Israeli forces since he was appointed as Jerusalem governor in 2018.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces rounded up more than 40 Palestinians in raids across the West Bank, the Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) said.
The nongovernmental organization (NGO) said 26 Palestinians were detained in Hebron city, while other arrests were reported in Bethlehem, Qalqilya, Jenin and Nablus.
PPS spokesperson Amani Sarahna, however, said most of the detainees were later released, without giving an exact number.
The Israeli army frequently carries out wide-ranging arrest campaigns across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem on the pretext of searching for "wanted" Palestinians.
Palestinian NGOs estimate that there are around 4,650 Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails, including at least 160 minors and 34 female detainees.
During the 1967 Middle East war, Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Syria's Golan Heights and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, which was later returned to Egypt under the country's 1979 peace deal with Israel.
