WEST BANK (PIC)– At least 17 Palestinian civilians including a minor were kidnapped by the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) in abrupt sweeps launched across West Bank provinces at the break of dawn on Wednesday.
The Israeli occupation army claimed responsibility for the abduction of several Hamas affiliates on charges of involvement in anti-occupation activism.
The campaign also targeted a number of Palestinian youngsters in the occupied West Bank provinces of Nablus Salfit al-Khalil and Bethlehem.
Meanwhile clashes broke out overnight in Sebastiya where a military checkpoint was pitched by the IOF on a road connecting Madama and Asira al-Qibliya towns.
At the same time the occupation troops wreaked havoc on dozens of Palestinian family homes and commercial shops in the southern occupied West Bank city of al-Khalil triggering panic among women and children.
A PIC journalist said the IOF smashed windows and blew up entrance gates before they aggressively attacked the native inhabitants and shopkeepers.
The Israeli army troops further stormed the Rashed al-Maktoum Charity in Wadi al-Hiryeh and cracked down on its staff members.
Israeli military maneuvers have also been detected across residential neighborhoods in al-Khalil for the second consecutive day.
A state of horror overwhelmed al-Khalil inhabitants as over 300 Israeli soldiers carried out intensive military drills and searches in the area.
An Israeli army troops also rolled into Jenin’s western town of Sila al-Harithiya in the northern occupied West Bank and summoned the ex-prisoner Muhammad Abu al-Kheir 30 to questioning after they rummaged into his family home.
The assault culminated in the abduction of seven Palestinian youths from Occupied Jerusalem including 16-year-old Abdul Aziz Khaled Damdoum.
