Israeli occupation soldiers stormed the Ramallah offices of the main Palestinian Internet service provider, Palnet, shutting down its services to the West Bank and Gaza Strip and arresting six employees, a company manager told AFP. "The army raided our offices in Ramallah and arrested six employees without giving a reason," the manager, Samir Sabri, said by telephone from the company's still-operating Jerusalem offices.

"We cannot provide our services, outside of Jerusalem, to some 10,000 subscribers, including academic institutions and university students, who account for 70 percent of the Internet users in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip," he said.
He said that Palnet had appealed to international organizations and the US consul general to demand Israel withdraw its soldiers from its offices in the West Bank city and allow it to resume its services.

An Israeli military spokesman refused to comment on the action.

The Internet is an essential means of communications for Palestinians trapped in the occupied territories by Israeli military blockades and, except for the telephone, largely cut off from the outside world.

Most of the main towns in the West Bank have notably been reoccupied and placed under long curfews for more than three weeks following two deadly suicide attacks in Jerusalem.

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The division of the former British mandate of Palestine and the creation of the state of Israel in the years after the end of World War II have been at the heart of Middle Eastern conflicts for the past half century.