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Israeli tanks backed by helicopter gunships swept into the Gaza Strip yesterday, battling Palestinian gunmen, and troops arrested at least 25 suspected militants in West Bank raids.
The Gaza incursion was the latest in a drive against militants following a suicide bus bombing in Jerusalem last week that killed 11 Israelis in a new round of violence.
The army said 25 suspected militants were arrested in the West Bank, but Palestinian witnesses said many others were detained.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is juggling conflicting pressures to look tough before a general election, while avoiding an escalation in the conflict to help Washington win Arab support for possible military action against Iraq.
As part of the West Bank round-up, about 200 troops backed by heavy armour entered the Deheisheh refugee camp in the city of Bethlehem before dawn, seizing some 30 Palestinians in house-to-house searches, Palestinian witnesses said.
They said soldiers detained 11 suspected militants affiliated to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction in the village of Kufr Kalil, near Nablus in the northern West Bank, and surrounded another suspected militant's home.
There were no reports of gun battles in the West Bank, but shooting broke out in Gaza as several dozen tanks and armoured vehicles rolled into the town and refugee camp of Deir al-Balah under the cover of darkness.
Residents said the troops in Deir al-Balah blew up the four-storey home of an Islamic militant belonging to Hamas - the main group behind a wave of suicide bombings in Israel.
The army confirmed the Gaza house demolition of a Hamas militant, saying Israel blamed him for gun attacks against Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers. The troops later withdrew.
Palestinian hospital officials said four Palestinians were wounded in the Israeli incursion, including a medic.
(Xinhua News Agency November 27, 2002)
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