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QALQILIYA (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces raided Qalqiliya and detained two Palestinians early Friday morning, witnesses in the Palestinian city said.

One of the detained was a photographer.

According to sources, an Israeli military force raided Qalqiliya at 2 a.m., raiding several houses in the city. They detained two Palestinians, Mahmoud al-Shanti and Musab Zahran, and took them to an unknown location.

Al-Shanti works as a photographer with Chinese news agency Xinhua and he is a member of the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate.

An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed the detentions, adding that they were detained for "illegal activities."

The Palestinian city of Qalqiliya is nearly completely surrounded by the Israeli separation wall, while checkpoints cut it off from most of the West Bank.

Israel began building the separation wall in 2002, and the route has been the target of regular demonstrations by border towns whose land is cut off by its path. Israel has regularly confiscated large plots of Palestinian land in order to build the wall. When the 435-mile barrier is complete, 85 percent of it will have been built inside the occupied West Bank.

In 2004 the International Court of Justice ruled that the separation wall was illegal and "tantamount to annexation."

The internationally recognized Palestinian territories of which the West Bank and East Jerusalem form a part have been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967.
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