By Xinhua,
Gaza : Israeli forces arrested on early Thursday tens of Palestinians near the border in northeast Gaza Strip during an incursion, residents and witnesses said.
The residents said about ten Israeli army tanks and two bulldozers rolled for 500 meters into Beit Hanoun city and soldiers used loudspeakers to call on the men aged between 16 and 60, to gather near the security fence that separates Israel and the city.
Local sources in the city estimated Israeli soldiers detained tens of Palestinians, including a journalist lives in Beit Hanoun, working for a local news agency.
The tanks opened heavy machine-gun fire from time to time and the bulldozers conducted leveling and excavations in the fields of the border city where Palestinian militants fire rockets into nearby Israeli city of Sderot.
Meanwhile, hospital officials said a Palestinian man died due to severe wounds he sustained Wednesday during an Israeli militaryoperation in southeast Gaza Strip.
The Israeli raids against the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip continue as the Islamic movement said it expects to receive Israeli responses on an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire Thursday.
Hamas accepted the Egyptian proposal for a six-month ceasefire in Gaza but requested more “clarifications after Israel insisted to retrieve one of its soldiers, held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, under the Egyptian offer.
Hamas insisted on keeping the issue of corporal Gilad Shalit away from the lull’s deal.