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IDF’s continuing raids net six more wanted terrorists

Dozens of Palestinian suspects have been nabbed in Judea and Samaria over recent weeks in the army’s Breaking the Wave anti-terrorist operation.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Israeli security agencies arrested six more wanted Palestinian terrorists overnight in Judea and Samaria as part of the continuing Breaking the Wave anti-terror operation, the IDF spokesperson announced Wednesday.

IDF, Border Police and Shabak forces entered the cities of Nablus (Shechem) and Ramallah as well as several villages in the Binyamin region and Etzion bloc. Among those arrested was one man suspected of illegally driving Palestinians across the security fence, the army said. The forces also found and confiscated a cache of illegal weapons.

On Tuesday, again with the aid of the Border Police and intelligence agents, 12 wanted terrorists were captured in a range of other villages as well as the cities of Bethlehem, Tul Karem and Hebron.

The IDF said nothing about any clashes during the raids, and no Israeli forces were hurt.

A week ago Tuesday, in one of its bigger hauls, Israeli forces nabbed 21 suspects in one night’s intensive work. Palestinians responded with violence in three of the raids.

In the refugee camp-village of Aqabat Jaber in the Jordan Valley, Channel 10 reported, a violent riot broke out, with about 20 Palestinians throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks at the soldiers. In Balata in Samaria, Palestinians also threw explosives at the troops, while in Beituniya in the Benjamin region, several suspects threw stones and bottles of paint in an effort to derail the arrests.

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No casualties were reported among the Israeli forces.

The IDF has been conducting constant arrest raids in the region ever since a spate of terror attacks in March and April left 20 Israelis dead and dozens injured. Even while registering significant success, during Israeli Independence Day celebrations in May, two Palestinian terrorists murdered another three Jews and injured five in the central town of Elad.

The IDF has endured stiff opposition at times during Breaking the Wave, mainly during raids into Jenin and the surrounding area. Dozens of terrorists have confronted Israeli forces there with hot weapons, and serious firefights have resulted in the deaths of numerous Palestinian gunmen and police commando Sgt. Maj. Noam Raz.

In the mid-May raid in which Raz was fatally wounded, a senior officer in the army’s Central Command said that the amount of gunfire the troops faced was “indescribable.” Two days earlier, American-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in Jenin’s refugee camp during an IDF incursion in which the army said  “hundreds of bullets” were shot at its soldiers.

The Palestinians immediately accused the IDF of deliberately murdering the journalist, a charge Israel dismissed out of hand. The PA has refused Israel’s request to release the bullet for an impartial investigation, which would include American personnel, to see if it came from an Israeli or Palestinian weapon.