NABLUS (West Bank) Feb 25: Israeli troops stormed Nablus on Sunday, arresting 20 Palestinians and triggering clashes that left six people wounded in the largest military crackdown in the West Bank in months.
Israeli troops rode into the centre of Nablus in dozens of jeeps and armoured vehicles, imposing a curfew and surrounding several buildings, including two hospitals, witnesses said.
Palestinians condemned the “outrageous aggression” and warned it could undermine President Mahmud Abbas's efforts to revive the peace process just one week after a three-way summit with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
“This aggression by the Israeli occupation government is like cutting the road forward after all our efforts to find peace,” the Palestinian president’s office said in a statement.
The operation, the largest in the West Bank since a January 4 raid in Ramallah killed four Palestinians, was aimed at finding weapons caches and arresting wanted militants, an Israeli military spokesman said.
The raid comes after police foiled a suicide bomb plot in Tel Aviv last week and the army discovered what it described as an explosives lab in Nablus on Friday.
Four Palestinians were lightly wounded by rubber bullets in the clashes, medics said, while two Israeli soldiers were wounded by a small pipe bomb, according to the army.
Troops continued to conduct house-to-house searches throughout the day, detaining more than 20 people, according to Palestinian security sources.
Israel said only one militant had been formally arrested.
The operation is continuing and the army has given no indication of when it will withdraw from Nablus, the West Bank's second largest city.
In much of the city, streets remained under curfew and deserted as the occasional explosion shook the area. Shops were shuttered and schools closed.
The army distributed flyers to residents saying the raid was aimed at arresting nine wanted people, security sources said.
Israel says Nablus is a militant hotbed and a primary staging area for suicide bombers. It says it has uncovered six covert bomb factories in Nablus since the start of 2006.
“Nablus is full of terror activity and attempts at dispatching terrorist attacks against the Israeli home front and IDF (Israeli Defence Force) soldiers,” an Israeli military spokesman told AFP.
The Hamas-led Palestinian government called on the international community to intervene and cautioned that the raid would only lead to further instability in the region.
“The international community should understand that Israel, with its continuing aggressive policies in the Palestinian territories, is threatening all chances of stability in the region,” it said in a statement.
“The Palestinian government asks the international community to stop Israeli crimes.”Last July, Israel conducted a vast three-day operation in Nablus in which it destroyed almost all the local Palestinian Authority headquarters.—AFP
NABLUS (West Bank) Feb 25: Israeli troops stormed Nablus on Sunday, arresting 20 Palestinians and triggering clashes that left six people wounded in the largest military crackdown in the West Bank in months.
