Police arrest Hamas Cabinet minister

Police on Thursday arrested a minister in the Palestinian's new Hamas government, the first time the security services have arrested a minister since the Cabinet was sworn in last week, Hamas officials said. Khaled Abu Arafa, minister of Jerusalem affairs, was arrested along with his bodyguard when he was on his way to Izzariya, a suburb near Jerusalem, where he was planning to open an office, the Hamas officials said. Abu Arafa, a Jerusalem resident born in 1961, has been detained several times in the past.