Israeli troops entered Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank overnight and arrested more than 70 Palestinians, the military said on Thursday, one of the largest such sweeps in two years of fighting.
A military statement said the sweep was still in progress at daybreak. One focus was the area of Ramallah, where 55 Palestinians had been arrested by daybreak. The statement said, ”the goal of the operation is to attack the terror infrastructure in general and especially the Hamas infrastructure,” referring to the violent Islamic group that has carried out dozens of suicide bomb attacks against Israel in the last two years.
The military said that so far, ”55 wanted terrorists were arrested.” No soldiers were hurt, the military said. There was no immediate word about Palestinian casualties, and no official Palestinian comment.
In other parts of the West Bank, the military said, 19 Palestinians were arrested. In one village, soldiers found and detonated a 15-kilogramme bomb.
Israeli soldiers have been making arrests almost every night in the West Bank, but this was the largest operation of its kind. In mid-June, after two suicide bomb attacks in Jerusalem, Israeli forces took control of most of the main Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank.
On Wednesday, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat charged that Israel is escalating the conflict ”against our villages, refugee camps, cities, against the Palestinian infrastructure and against our hospitals.”
In Gaza just after midnight, Israeli tanks and troops exchanged fire with Palestinian gunmen in the Rafah refugee camp near the Egyptian border, witnesses said. The new violence erupted hours after a clash in the same area in which two Palestinians were killed.
Palestinians said more than 20 tanks and several jeeps, backed by attack helicopters, moved on the refugee camp from two directions, firing machine guns. On one side, the tanks stopped just short of the camp, and the two sides were firing at each other. Tanks entered the camp from the other side, and helicopters overhead fired machine guns. The Israeli military said that an operation was in progress. Residents said a helicopter fired a missile at an area where soldiers had destroyed houses in an earlier raid, and no one was hurt. The military had no comment about the report.
During the clash, an Israeli armored vehicle ran over an explosive device, Palestinians said. The military said a soldier was lightly wounded in the blast. The violent Islamic Hamas took responsibility for the blast in an announcement over a mosque loudspeaker in the camp.
A few hours earlier, two Palestinians were killed and 17 wounded when soldiers in tanks opened fire with machine guns at Palestinians throwing rocks at them, witnesses said. The Israeli military said soldiers returned fire after gunmen shot at them.
There are daily clashes along the frontier, which is under Israeli control according to interim peace accords. Palestinians attack Israeli military outposts on the border and at nearby Jewish settlements, and Israeli forces make frequent forays into the camp, looking for tunnels the Palestinians use for smuggling weapons in from Egypt under the border. – Sapa-AP