A senior Palestinian security source in Nablus denied Israeli military reports of uncovering a large bomb factory in the West Bank city of Nablus. While the Israeli Army claimed that resistance factions used a building in the city as a ‘factory for manufacturing explosives’, Palestinian security claims that the so-called ‘factory’ was in fact a jewelry workshop that contained chemical materials for cleaning jewels.
Israeli soldiers bombed the building after claiming that it contained explosives. The Palestinian internal security source asked, “If this building really contained explosives, as the army claimed, the explosion would have had much greater impact….the army didn’t remove any of the alleged ‘explosives’ before they bombed the building….the only conclusion we can make is that the alleged ‘explosives’ simply were not there at all.”
Israeli Army Radio reported that an Israeli military source said that Fateh and Islamic Jihad men arrested the day before in Balata revealed, during interrogation and torture, the location of the factory, a building in Al Qasaba neighborhood in Nablus that Army sources claimed contained dozens of kilograms of materials used in the production of explosives.
In Balata refugee camp, soldiers broke into twenty homes and searched them. Damage to the properties was reported. Soldiers also occupied several homes and used them as military posts and monitoring towers.
The large military operation started in Nablus and Balata refugee camp on Sunday.
On Monday morning, two Palestinian children and one member of the Islamic Jihad were killed in Balata, dozens of residents were injured, and at least seven were arrested. The Nablus invasion appears to be ongoing, with more reports of injuries and Israeli attacks in various residential neighborhoods on Tuesday.
