Israel Troops Force Raid Jenin
28/03/2005| IslamWeb
Israeli occupation forces have raided the Palestinian city of Jenin, arresting eight resistance fighters.
Israeli security sources said the fighters were involved in making crude rockets and mortars for attacks against Israeli towns.
The raid on Monday was a rare invasion into a West Bank city by the Israeli military since Israel and the Palestinian Authority declared a de facto truce in February.
The army had said it would carry out only essential operations after the truce.
An Israeli soldier was slightly wounded by an explosive device during the operation in which five Islamic Jihad fighters were arrested in Jenin and three in a nearby village.
Israeli forces located a workshop last month on the outskirts of Jenin where they found components for crude rockets capable of being fired at the nearby Israeli city of Afula.
Producing rockets
Israeli media said the resistance fighters arrested early on Monday were connected to the cell that had produced the rocket parts, adding the fighters were trying to produce munitions similar to the al-Qassam rockets that fighters in Gaza have regularly fired at the Israeli town of Sderot and Jewish settlements in Gaza.
Israel has already handed over two West Bank cities to Palestinian security control over the past month, but on Sunday delayed the transfer of Qalqilya because it said the Palestinians had failed to confiscate weapons from resistance fighters.
The delay was a setback for security cooperation agreed at a ceasefire summit last month.
Israel has not yet said when it would transfer control of Jenin.
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