The Israeli army pulled out of the West Bank city of Tulkarem Saturday afternoon, ending a two-day sweep for Palestinian activists in which one soldier was killed and two wounded, witnesses said.
Eight Palestinians were wounded at the start of the Israeli incursion Friday and an 11-year-old boy was hurt as tanks and armored vehicles pulled out at midday Saturday under cover of machinegun fire, they said.
The army said troops had detained four Palestinians in Tulkarem and defused a bomb found in one house. Palestinian sources in the city said 100 people had been detained.
The Israeli army spokesman said that its troops would continue to carry out operations in Tulkarem, "as long as it continues to be a primary origin of terror against the citizens of Israel and its soldiers."
The Israeli army placed dozens of Palestinian villages under curfew overnight Friday, the Israeli public radio said. The curfew was imposed on villages, all along the Green Line border stretching from Jenin to Ramallah, in an effort to prevent Palestinian bombers leaving the area in order to carry out attacks inside Israel, the radio added.
Elsewhere, a Palestinian woman trying to reach hospital said she had given birth on a road to Bethlehem Saturday after soldiers denied her passage. The baby died later, doctors said.
The army denied soldiers had stopped her. It said she was already in the care of a Palestinian ambulance team when she began to give birth.
"We arrived at the al-Khader checkpoint but Israeli soldiers refused to let us pass even though they saw the situation," the woman, Fadia Najajra, 23, told Reuters. "I was crying and asking for them to let the car pass."
"We called a Palestinian ambulance. The soldiers surrounded the car and watched me give birth," she said.
Also on Saturday, near the West Bank village of Sanur, Israeli soldiers arrested a 16-year-old Palestinian who was wearing an explosive belt. The youth was travelling in a taxi along with four other people when the cab was stopped by soldiers at a checkpoint. All of the people in the cab were taken into custody, the Israeli army stated.
"The passengers were asked to lift their shirts and that is how the explosive belt was discovered on one of them," the Israeli army’s statement said, adding that army experts had deactivated the explosive belt. Palestinian security sources in Jenin confirmed the incident and said the army was still patrolling the area. (Albawaba.com)
