NABLUS, West Bank (AP) — Israel’s military said it detained over 70 suspects across the occupied West Bank overnight and on Saturday, a day after troops deployed across the territory following violence that left two Israeli soldiers and four Palestinian villagers dead.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.“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 both staff and patients, raided all departments of the hospital and arrested a seriously injured man, Ali Hussein Ali Ramadan.
“This should not happen in a healthcare institution,” Barkat said, adding that women and children were present.Israel’s military in a statement did not mention the hospital but said over 300 locations were searched. It said it detained what it described as affiliates of the Hamas militant group, arms traffickers, “terrorists” and others.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.
