Israel Slaps Curfew on West Bank City After Raid
The Israeli army imposed a curfew on the West Bank city of Tulkarm Saturday after a two-day raid in which one Israeli soldier was killed and 11 other people wounded.

Israeli troops withdrew to the fringes of Tulkarm after what the army called a sweep for Palestinian militants linked to suicide bombings, but kept the city tightly encircled as part of its siege tactics against a 20-month-old Palestinian uprising.

Eight Tulkarm Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were wounded in violence Friday that claimed the soldier's life at the start of the army operation.

An 11-year-old boy was shot and wounded as tanks and armored vehicles withdrew at midday Saturday under cover of Israeli machinegun fire, Palestinian witnesses said.

The army said troops had detained four Palestinians in Tulkarm and defused a bomb found in one house. Palestinian sources in the city said Israeli forces had detained 25 people.

Israel has continued to send troops and tanks into and out of what are officially Palestinian-ruled areas, and kept them surrounded throughout, since it declared a West Bank military offensive over earlier this month.

Israel said the offensive unleashed on March 29 resulted in the killing or capture of a large number of Palestinian militants behind suicide bombings that have killed scores of Israelis. The Israeli army battered West Bank cities and refugee camps and scores of people, including civilians, died.

Palestinians have vowed to pursue their uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which has raged since talks on a Palestinian state stalled in 2000. Just a few years before talks broke down Palestinians had won self-rule over parts of those same areas in interim peace deals.

But Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has demanded an end to what he now terms ``terrorist attacks'' inside Israel, saying they harm prospects for his people's independence.

In the Gaza Strip Saturday, Israeli tanks fired shells into a wheat field, hitting two Palestinians and setting fire to the area near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, Palestinian security sources said.

The fate of the two was unknown as Palestinian ambulances were unable to reach the scene, they said. The army said it was looking into the report.

Israel's attempts to halt Palestinian attacks by encircling West Bank towns and blocking roads with a network of checkpoints and barbed wire impose heavy burdens on civilians.

A Palestinian woman trying to reach hospital said she had given birth on a road to Bethlehem Saturday after soldiers denied her passage in a car driven by her husband. The baby later died, Palestinian doctors said.

The army denied soldiers had stopped her. It said there was no checkpoint on the road and soldiers from a nearby post had only reached the scene after they saw the ambulance arrive.

It said soldiers saw the woman being moved from her car into the ambulance by medics before she delivered the baby.

But a medic from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said the ambulance had arrived too late to assist with the birth. A doctor said the baby had died of a lung disorder 40 minutes after arrival at the Holy Family hospital in Bethlehem.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-mideast.html