ISRAEL

Independent: Israel arrests protesters as 'security risk'
Eight foreign nationals have been arrested in the occupied territories as Israeli authorities clamp down on international peace activists on the ground that they pose a "security risk".

The case of a Belfast journalist and language teacher who was mistakenly arrested by Israeli security forces in the belief he was a bomb-maker has put the spotlight on the latest arrests.

The eight, who included two Britons, were being held in an Israeli police station in the West Bank and were refused bail. The Britons, Alex Perry and Saul Reid, were among a group of four arrested while removing a crude roadblock put up by the Israeli army to block Palestinian traffic - for security reasons, the army says. The other four were arrested while staging a sit-in to protest against Israel's construction of a "security fence" inside the West Bank. The Israeli authorities have been trying to deport them.