Israeli armored personnel carriers and tanks raided a Palestinian town in the Gaza Strip on Saturday and arrested a leading activist, security sources said.
They said Maher Bashir, a local leader of the Islamic Jihad group, was detained with three brothers. Israeli troops took them from their homes during the raid in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
An Israeli security source said there was a "targeted operation" in the area, Reuters reported.
Sources said troops blew up empty buildings belonging to the Palestinian civil emergency service and Fatah. They withdrew after about three hours, briefly taking over police and intelligence headquarters.
An Israeli military spokesman said that the troops carried out searches in offices belonging to Fatah where several documents and an explosive device were discovered.
Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that the situation in Gaza, where a truce had been tested, "has only gotten worse, day by day."
Meanwhile, an internal army investigation on Friday cleared Israeli soldiers who killed 12 Palestinians in three incidents last week.
The military report said that in two cases, Palestinians were moving in a suspicious manner in areas that are off-limits to civilians, and soldiers acted according to regulations when they opened fire, AP reported.
In the third incident, in which two Palestinian children and two teenagers were killed in a targeted missile attack on Palestinian activist in the West Bank town of Tubas, one of the missiles missed the target, apparently because of a technical mishap, the statement said.
The army had investigated the deaths of four Palestinian farmers in Gaza, four laborers in a West Bank quarry and the four youngsters in the missile attack.
Military officials said the quarry workers had been masked, armed with an ax and that there was "a possibility" they were en route to carrying out an attack. The teens killed in the missile attack were accomplices of the wanted activists, the military officials said.
Responding to the findings, Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said it was "shameful for Israel not to bring to justice those who kill innocent children, innocent mothers in cold blood." (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
