Israel arrests Hamas cabinet minister

Israeli police today arrested a minister in the Palestinians' new Hamas government, Hamas officials said.

Khaled Abu Arafa, minister of Jerusalem affairs, was arrested 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 by Israel several times in the past.