Israel Detains Palestinian Students
After briefly lifting a curfew to allow students to take exams, Israeli soldiers stormed a Hebron college campus Tuesday, detaining 300 Palestinians for questioning.

At least seven students were taken away by the army and a number of the students were blindfolded, witnesses said of the Israeli operation, which continued a pattern of large-scale searches and arrests in the main West Bank population centers over the past two weeks.

In Hebron, soldiers entered the Palestinian Polytechnic Institute, a two-year college, and ordered men and women into separate yards, where they checked identification cards and questioned students, witnesses said.

The army did not immediately comment on the operation, and it was not clear whether the Israelis lifted the curfew in order to question the students.

Responding to a statement by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said U.S. officials would not meet with Arafat, the Palestinian National Council, a PLO policy body, put out a statement Tuesday expressing its ``full, unconditional support and solidarity'' with Arafat. The statement said Palestinian officials should ``forbid meetings with foreign officials if they are not authorized by the (Palestinian) leadership.''
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html