Israel Raids Palestinian Village

13/05/2001| IslamWeb

TEL, West Bank (Islamweb & News Agencies) - In a 10-hour raid Monday on a Palestinian village, Israeli occupation troops killed an Islamic Resistance leader and arrested 45 residents, including 16 on Israel's so-called wanted list.Israel also continued to hold parts of two Palestinian towns in the northern part of the West Bank. Occupation troops moved into six towns after the Oct. 17 assassination of an Israeli Cabinet minister in revenge of Israel's assassination of a leftist Palestinian Resistance leader. Occupation authorities said they were delaying a pullback from the last two because of intelligence reports of attempts by Palestinian Resistance groups to mount attacks in Israel.
The U.S. State Department has repeatedly criticized the Israeli incursions into Palestinian areas and called on Israel to withdraw and stay out.
In the latest Israeli incursion, occupation soldiers moved into the West Bank village of Tel, next to the city of Nablus, around 2 a.m. Sealing off the village, they went from house to house, arresting suspected Resistance men.
At one house, occupation soldiers shot and killed Muhammed Reihan, 25, a senior member of the Islamic Resistance group Hamas. Reihan had been on Israel's so-called wanted list since 1998 for the killing of two residents of the nearby Jewish settlement of Yitzhar.
Reihan's father, Yussef, 57, said Israeli occupation soldiers surrounded his house and opened fire, and Muhammed went outside with a rifle, where he was killed. Then, he said, occupation soldiers searched the men.
The Israeli occupation army claimed its troops came under fire during the raid and returned fire, killing one of the Resistance men.
The occupation army said its soldiers detained 45 residents of Tel. In a statement, the occupation authorities said 16 were on so-called wanted lists for a long time and belonged to the Resistance groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as the Tanzim militia, affiliated with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat 's Fatah group.
The statement said the detainees were turned over to Israeli military services for questioning. Also, the occupation authorities said, many weapons were found during the incursion.
On Sunday, a Palestinian Resistance man shot and killed an occupation army officer at Kfar Hess, an Israeli farming village six miles from Tulkarem.
In Bethlehem on Sunday, a Palestinian was killed while preparing a bomb. He was a member of the Islamic Jihad group.
Since fighting broke out on Sept. 28, 2000, 753 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 197 on the Israeli side