Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested seven Palestinian from the Gaza Strip at Erez (Beit Hanun) crossing since the start of 2012, the Palestine prisoners’ center for studies said on Thursday. It said that IOF soldiers abduct patients seeking treatment in the West Bank or their escorts, noting that the latest such case was yesterday when IOF soldiers manning the crossing took away Khalil Al-Najjar, 44, who was accompanying his sick brother. It said that the patient and his escort had obtained an Israeli permit to cross into the West Bank for treatment of pain in the pelvis but Najjar was arrested without giving any reasons. The center noted that four others were sick patients who were on their way for treatment including a wounded youth and a cancer patient. It noted that one was taken while on his way to meet an intelligence officer at the crossing to ask for a permission to travel to Bethlehem to bring two blind children into his custody in Gaza and another was a car dealer. The center said that the Israeli intelligence, since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, never stopped trying to recruit those patients or their escorts to work as informants. It recalled that the IOF soldiers kidnapped eight Palestinians on the crossing last year. The center asked international institutions to pressure Israel into desisting from its practice of arresting patients while en route to hospitals and to stop blackmailing Palestinian travelers or summoning them for interrogation.