Israeli occupation troops stormed into the West Bank city of Nablus and arrested the local leaders of two armed resistance groups which claimed a resistance bombing in Israel last week, Palestinian and Israeli security sources confirmed. Amid intense exchanges of fire Monday in the northern city, occupation troops arrested Amir Zokan, 27, the local head of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah resistance group .

They also seized Alam Kaabi, 27, head of the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

Both groups laid claim to the resistance bombing at a train station in Kfar Saba last Thursday in which one Israeli was killed and a dozen injured. The groups said it was a joint operation.

It was not clear if any Palestinians were wounded in the fighting, although two Israeli occupation soldiers were injured, one of them seriously, when they were shot at by a besieged Palestinian sniper, an Israeli military source said.

"The Israeli army went into Nablus Monday to arrest wanted Palestinian activists and destroy the infrastructure of terrorist organizations," the Israeli source said.

Israeli occupation troops were also active in the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya overnight, destroying the family home of a Palestinian activist , an occupation army statement said.

The home targeted in the latest use of Israel's controversial deterrence policy was that of Ali Rahman Hamad, a member of the Islamic resistance group Hamas who died in a resistance bombing in Tel Aviv in February last year.

PHOTO CAPTION

Israeli occupation soldiers arrest a Palestinian activist in the West Bank city of Nablus. Israeli occupation troops arrested the local leaders of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades -- two armed militant groups.(AFP/File/Jaafar Ashtiyeh)