February 27, 2007	Tuesday	Safar 9, 1428

NABLUS, Feb 26: Israeli troops killed a Palestinian father in Nablus on Monday as the army pressed on with its biggest crackdown on militants in the northern West Bank city in nearly a year.

Anan al-Tibi, 41, was shot in the neck and killed and his 22-year-old son Ashraf was wounded when Israeli soldiers stormed their home in Nablus's Old City, Palestinian medical sources said.

The densely populated warren of pedestrian streets, shops and sweet vendors for which Nablus is renowned, was sealed off and under curfew for the second straight day as the army continued to search house-to-house for weapons caches and wanted militants in a city the Jewish state considers a “terrorist hub.” Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas condemned the operation, in which 11 people have also been wounded, and warned that it threatens to hobble a renewed peace push in the region by the United States.

“This operation is unacceptable and violates the spirit of the trilateral meeting with (US Secretary of State Condoleezza) Rice and (Israeli Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert,” Abbas said according to his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina.

Bursts of gunfire and the blare of army loudspeakers demanding residents evacuate buildings and militants surrender echoed through otherwise empty streets as Operation “Hot Winter” kept the West Bank's second largest city under siege.

Palestinian security sources said troops broke into the local television station Senabel overnight, confiscating transmitters, computers, videos and arresting its owner, 43-year-old Nabigh Breik. The Israeli army had no immediate confirmation.

Some residents continued to fight back, throwing rocks, bottles, small explosives and a rubbish bin at Israeli soldiers. Nine 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.

The army has detained around 30 Palestinians since pouring dozens of jeeps and armoured vehicles into the city centre early on Sunday. Five of those detained were wanted men and remain in custody, while the others were released, the army said.

On Sunday, the army discovered an explosives lab in Nablus, the second uncovered in two days. The lab contained an Israeli army missile, pipe bombs, and fertilizers used for making explosives, army spokeswoman Major Avital Leibovich said.

The crackdown in Nablus, which comes on the heels of a foiled suicide bomb attack against Tel Aviv last week, is the largest operation in the West Bank since a raid in Ramallah on Jan 4 left four Palestinians dead.

It is the biggest in Nablus since July last year, when Israeli bulldozers levelled the Palestinian Authority headquarters in the city.

Israel says Nablus is a militant hotbed and the army regularly launches arrest raids in the city and its outlying refugee camps. In the past 12 months those raids have netted 834 wanted militants, an army spokesman said. —AFP