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by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Israeli soldiers kidnapped, on Thursday at dawn, 55 Palestinians in different parts of the West Bank; soldiers broke into dozens of homes and searched them before kidnapping the residents.

The Palestine News & Info Agency (WAFA) reported that the army kidnapped six Palestinians in the Jenin district in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.

The army invaded Arraba village, near Jenin, and kidnapped Tareq Awad Qa’daan, 44, Ja’far Ibrahim Iz Ed-Deen, 38, and Mohammad Abul-Latif Ash-Sheebani, 39.

In the nearby town of Qabatia, the army kidnapped Awni Kameel, 30, Samer Saba’na, 28, and Faisal Saba’na, 45.

Soldiers also invaded the Al-Yamoun nearby town, and handed resident Samed Abu Al-Haija, 32, a military order informing him to head to the Salem military base for interrogation.

The army searched his home using military dogs; clashes were reported in the village after the army invaded it.

Furthermore, the army invaded Jenin city, Az-Zababda village, and the Mothallath Ash-Shuhadaa’ Village, and installed several roadblocks.

In Bethlehem, the army invaded Teqoua’ village, broke into and searched several homes and kidnapped two residents identified as Saed Nayef Abu Mfareh, 22, and Samer Mousa Abu Mfarreh, 21.

It is worth mentioning that, late on Wednesday at night, the army installed a roadblock at the entrance of Beit Fajjar town, south of Bethlehem, and confiscated surveillance cameras installed in a local gas station that belongs to resident Monir Thawabta.

Soldiers also kidnapped, on Thursday at dawn, six Palestinians in the Nablus district, in the northern part of the West Bank.

The army kidnapped a lecturer at the An-Najah University in the city, identified as Dr. Mustafa Ash-Shunnar, after breaking into his home and searching it.

They also invaded the Balata refugee camp and kidnapped three residents identified as Wael Al-Hash-Shah, Imad Al-Jarf, and Ahmad Abu Thraa'.

Two more residents were kidnapped in the nearby village of Awarta after the army broke into several homes and searched them; the kidnapped residents were identified as Riyadh Awwad, 22, and Aysar Samer Awwad, 22.

Six Palestinians were kidnapped in the central West Bank district of Ramallah; one resident identified as Abdul-Qaher Srour was kidnapped in Nil’lin village, while in Beit Liqya village, the army kidnapped Rabah ‘Aasi, 55, his two sons Fuad, 26, and Jihad, 28, in addition to Issam ‘Aasi, 27, and Ahmad Falah Mousa, 25.

Soldiers also invaded the southern West Bank district of Hebron and kidnapped three residents.
One resident, identified as Bilal Mustafa Al-Jabareen, was kidnapped in Sa’ir town, northeast of Hebron, while resident Nidal Ahmad Abu Raas, was kidnapped from Kharsa village, south of Hebron, and resident Ibrahim Fathi Awad, 22, was kidnapped in Beit Ummar.

On Wednesday at night, the army invaded Ithna town, near Hebron, and fired a concussion grenade into a Palestinian security center wounding an officer identified as Abdul-Hadi Al-Jayawi.

The grenade caused fire to the center.
The latest round of invasions and arrests is part of ongoing daily attacks against the Palestinians and their property in different parts of the occupied West Bank.

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Witnesses: PA security block Israeli raid on Jenin

JENIN (Ma'an) -- Palestinian Authority security forces on Wednesday blocked Israeli troops from entering the northern West Bank city of Jenin, witnesses said.

PA security patrols stationed at Beer al-Jamal, south of the city, stopped a number of Israel military vehicles, leading to long altercations between Palestinian officers and Israeli soldiers.

Eventually, Israeli troops left the area, witnesses told Ma'an.

An Israeli military spokeswoman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Overnight, Israeli forces detained 55 Palestinians in raids across the West Bank, the Israeli army said. Nine people were detained in three villages around Jenin, but none were detained from the city itself, a military statement said.

Under the 1993 Oslo agreement, the PA has full security control over urban center in the occupied West Bank, but Israeli forces enter almost every night to detain Palestinians and search homes. They instruct PA forces to return to their bases before the raids.

On Tuesday, a PA security officer said Palestinian forces had refused to provide security coordination to Israeli troops entering Tulkarem in the northern West Bank.

He said the Palestinian liaison officers turned down the request because the troops wanted to enter at the time children were going to school in the morning.

The PA security commander told Ma'an around 200 officers deployed around the city in front of Israeli military patrols. Israeli forces eventually retreated, he said.

An Israeli military spokesman did not respond to a request to comment on that incident.

There are 4,520 Palestinian prisoners being held in Israeli jails as of November 2012, according to Addameer. This figure includes 156 administrative detainees held without charge, 164 children and 10 women.

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Police Arrest Suspects in Tel Aviv Bus Blast, Including Israeli Citizen

By ISABEL KERSHNER for New York Times

JERUSALEM — An Arab with Israeli citizenship and several West Bank Palestinians have been arrested on suspicion of carrying out the bus bombing in the heart of Tel Aviv on Wednesday, the Israeli police and the internal security service, the Shin Bet, announced on Thursday.

The bombing, which injured 21 people, was regarded as a terrorist act and was the first such attack to strike the Mediterranean city in more than six years. It revived traumatic memories of the second Palestinian uprising, rattling the population even as a cease-fire was in the works to end eight days of intense fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

A Shin Bet statement said that the suspects were rounded up within hours of the explosion. Most of them, it said, were from the Palestinian village of Beit Laqiya in the Ramallah area of the West Bank, and were associated with both Hamas an another militant group, Islamic Jihad. It said the suspects had recruited a resident of Taibe, an Arab village in northern Israel, who was originally from Beit Laqiya but who had become an Israeli citizen through a family unification program.

None of the suspects were immediately identified. The Shin Bet said the group from Beit Laqiya had admitted to preparing the bomb, choosing Tel Aviv as the target and buying cellphones for the remote detonation of the device.

The Shin Bet and the police said that the Israeli man placed the bomb on the bus and then disembarked. He then made contact with the organizers in Beit Laqiya, who activated the bomb by a phone call, they said. The Israeli man fled.

After the blast, the police set up roadblocks and hunted for the bomber with helicopters. There were reports of huge traffic jams along Route 443, a highway that runs through the West Bank close to Beit Laqiya.

Israeli officials said that the bomb on the bus appeared to be smaller than the kind used by suicide bombers during the last Palestinian uprising, which broke out in 2000. A former police chief told Israel Radio that it seemed like a hastily improvised attack, rather than one that pointed to an organized terrorist infrastructure.

Still, such attacks from the West Bank have become a rarity, and the recruitment of an accomplice inside Israel was bound to raise further concerns among Israelis.

The Israeli military said that overnight it had arrested 55 Palestinians across the West Bank whom it described as “terror operatives” affiliated with various groups.

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