Three Israeli tanks rolled more than a kilometer (half a mile) into the self-rule Palestinian town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday, Palestinian security officials told AFP. Meanwhile, Israeli troops kidnapped a Hamas activist from the same area.
According to AFP, the tanks entered a farming area in the town near the Erez border crossing without any provocation and sparked exchanges of gunfire, but no injuries were reported.
Meanwhile, the Tel Aviv-based Haaretz said that Israeli forces kidnapped a Hamas militant in the early hours of Monday morning from a Palestinian-controlled area of the Gaza Strip.
Citing Palestinian sources, the paper said that the kidnapped man is Abed Rabbo Abu Husa, a member of the organization's military wing, and is suspected of involvement in the abduction and "targeted killings" of two Israeli soldiers in the late 1980s - Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sa'adon.
Abu Husa was snatched east of the Sajaiya neighborhood in Gaza City. Israeli security sources have confirmed the Palestinian reports, but have declined to divulge any further details.
The incursion, which came after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reiterated demands for a week of total calm before moving ahead with international peace plans, also followed conflicting reports on the deaths of two Palestinian men in the same area late Sunday.
Palestinian security sources charged that Israeli troops wounded and then assassinated two security force members after they made a similar incursion into the neighboring town of Beit Lahia.
The sources also told the agency that the troops wrecked a Palestinian police position.
The Palestinian police chief in Gaza, Brigadier-General Abdel Razek Majaida, was quoted in reports as saying Monday that the policemen were shot dead by the troops while lying wounded on the ground. Majaida did not elaborate.
However, the Israeli army said its soldiers had shot dead "two armed Palestinians" as they tried to sneak into the nearby Jewish settlement of Dougit.
The army confirmed the attack on Beit Lahia following Palestinian mortar fire on nearby Jewish settlements, but said it had not entered the town.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian official news agency (WAFA) reported that Israel has tightened siege on the road linking Bethlehem and Hebron in the West Bank.
It said that residents had to reach their destinations on foot along mountainous bypasses, and that some of them were harassed by the occupation troops – Albawaba.com
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