Israeli forces raid Tulkarm hospital area and ransack Fatah official's home
Witnesses said the home of a detained Fatah official was searched for the third time, and 25 families were forced from their homes earlier that day.
Israeli forces raided the area around Thabet Thabet Governmental Hospital in Tulkarm on Wednesday evening, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
Forces carried out extensive searches in the neighborhood behind the hospital, where they also entered and tore apart the home of Mohammed Ibrahim Shahada, the Fatah secretary in Tulkarm refugee camp, witnesses told WAFA.
The witnesses said this was the third time Shahada's house had been searched since he was detained.
Israeli special forces detained Shahada, 46, last September after opening live fire at his vehicle in the eastern part of Tulkarm, the report said.
In a separate development, Israeli troops put up a warning sign at the entrance to the al-Balawneh neighborhood of the refugee camp, barring entry and describing the camp as a closed military zone.
Earlier on Wednesday, Israeli forces ordered 25 families out of their homes in a western area next to the al-Hadida neighborhood near the camp, WAFA reported.
The forces then turned several of those homes into military barracks, the agency said.
Tulkarm and the nearby Jenin and Nur Shams refugee camps have been the focus of repeated Israeli military operations in the northern West Bank in recent years, with residents frequently reporting searches, arrests and restrictions on movement.
Fatah is the largest faction of the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, and its local officials in the camps are often targeted in Israeli operations.
