Israeli forces rounded up a large number of Palestinians in Tulkarm following an explosion at a checkpoint [Getty]
Israeli forces withdrew from Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank on Friday morning after besieging the city and carrying out raids a day earlier.
Soldiers conducted raids and carried out arrests after an explosive device planted by Palestinian fighters at an Israeli checkpoint blew up and injured two soldiers.
Despite leaving Tulkarm city, raids continued in nearby refugee camps.
The curfew that had been imposed on Tulkarm has been lifted, the secretary of the Fatah movement in the city, Iyad Jarad, told The New Arab’s sister site, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
But Israeli forces are still raiding the nearby Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarm and searching houses one by one, he says.
Videos shared online showed Israeli bulldozers destroying agricultural tents near the Tulkarm refugee camp.
Palestinian prisoners’ institutions said Israeli forces arrested nearly a thousand citizens during the Thursday raids. Images showed men being rounded up and made to walk in a single file.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, five young men were shot by Israeli forces in the village of Deir Jarir, east of Ramallah, early Friday morning.
Four of them were taken to the hospital for treatment, while the army detained one of the wounded. Their injuries were described as moderate to minor, according to local sources.
Israeli forces also stormed several homes in the town of Dura, south of Hebron, at dawn on Friday, and assaulted residents, including women and children, local sources told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
The Israeli military began ‘Operation Iron Will’ in January, which has seen assaults sweep the northern West Bank.
Israel claims it is uprooting Palestinian militant groups, but the destruction of towns and refugee camps and the forcible expulsion of residents have signalled Tel Aviv’s systematic approach to emptying the region of its Palestinian inhabitants.
Israeli officials have publicly announced their intentions to fully annexe the West Bank, captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War.
The military raids – and regular attacks by extremist Jewish settlers – have killed at least 1,020 Palestinians and injured around 7,000 others.
