IDF masses around Gaza refugee camp; 14 Palestinians killed
By Amos Harel and Amira Hass, Ha'aretz Correspondent, Ha'aretz Service and agencies
The IDF began to mass large numbers of infantry and armored forces around the Gaza Strip refugee camp of Jabalya late Monday night, according to Palestinian sources. Four Palestinians were killed and nine were injured when a gunfight broke out as IDF troops were preparing to enter, they added.
IDF troops arrested more than 1,000 Palestinians on Monday, in sweeping raids in the West Bank city of Qalqilya and in the refugee camp of Deheisheh, south of Bethlehem.
The IDF
Palestinians sitting under IDF guard in Qalqilyah on Monday.
operation in Qalqilya, which included dozens of tanks, armored forces and large infantry forces, was concluded Tuesday evening.
At least six Palestinians were reported killed in exchanges of fire early Monday in Qalqilya, and in the refugee camps of Deheisheh, south of Bethlehem and in the Bureij refugee camp in the cantral Gaza Strip.
In Qalqilyah, IDF forces clamped a curfew over the blockaded city and cut off the electrical supply before beginning house-to-house searches for suspected militants, witnesses said. A civilian and a PA policeman were killed during the raid, Palestinians said.
Palestinians also reported that tanks entered the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, killing two people. The army confirmed troops had taken over a Palestinian security building at the camp but gave no details.
Two other Palestinians were killed by IDF fire - one in Gaza and the other in Yatta in the West Bank.
Witnesses reported that 10 tanks were stationed around the small Al-Aza camp in northern Bethlehem overnight and troops entered several houses on the fringes of the camp after dawn.
Taking effective control of the much larger Deheisheh camp south of Bethlehem, which was encircled by tanks on Sunday, troops fired up to 20 shells at buildings overnight, Palestinian security sources said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said that some 600 Palestinian men between the ages of 13 and 45 years had been rounded up in Deheisheh, and that the IDF was now checking if any of them were on Israel's list of wanted terrorists.
A similar operation was carried out over the weekend in the West Bank refugee camp of Tul Karm, when 1,300 male residents between the ages of 15 and 50 were rounded up, although only 30 of that number were wanted by Israel.
About 50 armored vehicles rumbled into Qalqilyah from three directions in the dead of night early Monday, thrusting as deep as one kilometer into the town, which in the past has served as a jumping-off point for Palestinian terror attacks on the neighboring Israeli city of Kfar Sava.
The Qalqilyah raid was the latest in a series of large-scale IDF incursions into West Bank refugee camps and other population centers. The roar of tanks moving through Qalqilyah's streets, the clatter of helicopters hovering overhead and occasional bursts of fire from tank-mounted machine guns roused the town
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