Residents of the town of Beit Ummar during the funeral of the young martyr Nihil Breigith (French)

The Israeli occupation forces continued their raids and attacks on Palestinians in the cities of the occupied West Bank. They also arrested 20 people, bringing the number of detainees there to more than 7,000 since the start of the aggression on the Gaza Strip.

The occupation forces stormed the town of Al-Samou, south of Hebron, confiscated a number of vehicles, beat sheep shepherds in the south of the town, and arrested them. They also stormed the town of Taffuh, west of Hebron, and raided a number of shops.

The occupation forces searched the surveillance camera recordings of those stores, and set up checkpoints in the center of the town. The same force had stormed the “Wadi Abu Katila” area, in the center of Hebron, and attacked a number of residents of the area.

In Ramallah, Al Jazeera's correspondent reported that the occupation forces withdrew from the city center, about an hour after they stormed it, amid confrontations with Palestinian youths.

Military vehicles stormed in large numbers in the center of Ramallah, and deliberately threw tear gas bombs at Palestinian youths.

North of Hebron, the people of the town of "Beit Ummar" mourned the body of the young man, Nihal Breighith, who was martyred as a result of being hit by occupation bullets during their storming of the town yesterday, Wednesday. The Palestinian Ministry of Health said that 13 Palestinians were injured in the storming of the town.

Toll of detainees

According to a joint statement by the Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs Authority (governmental) and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club (private), the occupation forces arrested at least 20 Palestinians from the West Bank from the evening of Wednesday until Thursday morning, including a child and former prisoners from Bethlehem (south), Tulkarm, Nablus, and Jenin ( North), and Jerusalem (centre).

Thus, the number of detainees in the occupied West Bank has risen to 7,040 Palestinians since the seventh of last October, and “this includes those who were arrested from homes, through military checkpoints, those who were forced to surrender themselves under pressure, and those who were held hostage.”

The statement said that the arrests were "accompanied by sabotage and destruction of citizens' homes, in addition to severe beatings against detainees and their families."

On the other hand, the occupation army claimed in a statement that it had arrested 3,100 Palestinians in the West Bank since the beginning of the war on Gaza, claiming that 1,350 of them belonged to the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).

The West Bank is witnessing a wave of tension and field confrontations between Palestinians and the Israeli army, interspersed with raids and arrests of Palestinians, coinciding with the aggression on the Gaza Strip, which left tens of thousands of martyrs and wounded civilians, most of them children and women.

Source: Al Jazeera + Anatolia