Soldiers remained in the village of Tell, in the northern West Bank, where Friday's clashes were centered. Palestinians described searches that included raids of a hospital in the city of Nablus, one of the territory's most violent areas.
Palestinians in the West Bank have faced violence as Israel’s government has overseen a surge in settlement construction over the past four years. The international community overwhelmingly considers the Israeli settlement construction illegal and an obstacle to peace.
Soldiers make arrest during raid at West Bank hospital
“More than 50 armed soldiers and officers stormed the hospital, terrifying the patients,” Ghassan Barkat, director of Nablus Specialty Hospital, told journalists. He said soldiers on Friday detained, bound and insulted staff and patients, raided hospital departments and arrested a seriously injured man, Ali Hussein Ali Ramadan.
“This should not happen in a healthcare institution,” said Barkat, adding that women and children were present.
An Israeli military statement did not mention the hospital, but it said over 300 locations were searched and what it described as affiliates of the Hamas terrorist group, arms traffickers, “terrorists” and others were detained.
The circumstances of Friday's events remained unclear, but Israeli media reports and interviews with local Palestinian officials suggested a group of settlers entered Tell and were confronted by residents fearful of an attack. The village is off-limits to Israelis as part of Area B under the 1993 Oslo Accords.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli soldiers shot and killed four Palestinians in Tell, while the military reported the deaths of two soldiers, one of them a settler in a local defense squad. Two other Israelis and four more Palestinians were wounded, health officials said.
The Israeli military on Saturday said it detained 11 suspects in Tell.
Over 80 Palestinians were arrested across the territory, said Amin Shuman, president of the Palestinian higher commission for the affairs of prisoners, calling them “an attempt to impose collective punitive measures and retaliatory policies” against Palestinian citizens after Friday’s events.
On Saturday, Israel's military said Israeli civilians and Palestinians threw rocks in a confrontation in the West Bank village of Susya, and the weapon of a soldier on leave was stolen but retrieved.
More than 700,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians for an independent state along with the Gaza Strip.
