Israel cracks down on West Bank
Israeli forces have demolished the family home of a Palestinian resistance fighter who bombed a shopping centre on Tuesday, and have imposed a curfew on several West Bank towns.
Bulldozers tore down the house of Khamis Jerwan in the Askar refugee camp, near the West Bank town of Nablus on Wednesday, in a brutal show of revenge against his family for Tuesday’s attack, an Aljazeera correspondent reported.
“Israeli forces have imposed a tight blockade on the towns of Nablus, Qalqilya, Jenin and Tulkaram,” she added. “They have also imposed a curfew on towns around Nablus and Qalqilya.”
Israeli security forces also arrested 10 Palestinians from various West Bank towns – three from Nablus, three from Kofr Na’ma and a member of Fatah from Jenin, she said.
The Israelis said they were setting up extra checkpoints at major Israeli towns because they had received warnings of more attacks.
Cycle of retaliation
The Israeli actions come after Jerwan detonated a bomb at a shopping centre in the northern Israel town of Rosh Ha-ayin the day before, killing himself and an Israeli.
Rosh Ha-ayin lies near the area where Israel is planning to extend the controversial apartheid wall, crossing the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, claimed responsibility for the attack in Rosh Ha-ayin. It said the bombing was in response to Israel’s attacks in Nablus last week, which left four Palestinians dead.
Also on Tuesday, a second Palestinian detonated a device he was carrying at a bus stop outside the settlement of Ariel, killing a settler and himself.
All Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are illegal under international law, but Israel disputes this.