Israeli troops sweep into Gaza Strip
Along with six metal workshops, 20 houses were badly damaged in the Israeli raid, Palestinians said, leaving families homeless. A gunman from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a group linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, was killed in a fierce gunbattle and six other people were injured, Palestinian doctors said.
Khalid Abdullah, 34, said his house was destroyed. “I took my 5 children and my wife and we spent all night in the street,” he said.
Palestinians said soldiers broke into the Fatah offices, destroyed equipment and caused considerable damage.
The Israeli military said soldiers blew up six workshops used to manufacture rockets and mortars. On Thursday night, an Qassam rocket hit a house in Saad, an Israeli village two miles from the Gaza border fence. The house was damaged, but the family was not at home and no one was hurt.
Shortly after Israeli troops withdrew from Rafah at daybreak, a mortar shell exploded at a nearby Jewish settlement, Israel Radio reported. As they pulled back, an Israeli tank ran into an armoured personnel carrier, lightly injuring eight soldiers, the military said.
Israeli forces were also on the move in two places in the West Bank.
Soldiers entered the town of Tubas in the northern part of the West Bank early Friday and were detaining terror suspects, the Israeli military said. Residents said the soldiers took over a building and made arrests.
In Tulkarem, residents said about 10 tanks entered the town, on the line between the West Bank and Israel, on Thursday evening. The Israeli military said only that some forces has been sent into Tulkarem and the curfew there re-imposed.
Tulkarem is one of six West Bank Palestinian cities and towns that have been under Israeli military control since mid-June, when Israel sent its army into communities following back-to-back suicide bombing attacks in Jerusalem.
Since then, the Israeli military has imposed curfews in the towns, confining hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to their homes.
The restrictions are usually lifted during the day in most places, except Nablus, which Israel considers a centre of terrorist activity.
Incursions like the ones in Tulkarem and Tubas are common.
Every night the Israeli military carries out raids on Palestinian towns and villages, afterward announcing arrests of suspected militants.
