RAMALLAH, West Bank, 4 January 2003 — Israeli forces launched two incursions into autonomous Palestinian areas of the West Bank early yesterday, blowing up the family home of a leader of the Islamic Jihad group, Palestinian and Israeli officials said.

In the south of the West Bank, Israeli forces moved into the village of Beit Fakhi in the Hebron autonomous zone, and blew up the home of Mahmud Ismael Barwish, a local Islamic Jihad leader who was arrested six months ago, the Israeli Army and witnesses said.

However residents of the Al-Amari refugee camp in the Palestinian autonomous zone of Ramallah in the north of the West Bank said that a force of some 20 jeeps which entered the camp and surrounded the family home of Wafa Idris, the first woman to die in a bombing attack on Israeli targets, left without destroying it. The troops had apparently decided that blowing up the home would have destroyed too much of the surrounding area, they said.

The Israeli Army confirmed the incursion into Al Amari, but gave no details as to the operation there, or why it was taking place.

Wafa Idris killed an Israeli man in his eighties and was herself killed when she detonated a bomb strapped to her waist in an attack in west Jerusalem on Jan. 27 last year.

The Israeli Army has destroyed some 110 homes of Palestinians in the territories since last August.

Israel claims the policy, which has been strongly criticized by human rights groups, has a dissuasive effect on would-be bombers.

The army said yesterday that several dozen Palestinian prisoners were lightly hurt in disturbances at the Ofer camp, near Ramallah. The number of inmates has been swollen by Israeli sweeps.

Overnight, Israeli guards used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse inmates protesting alleged poor conditions. The army said a guard also suffered minor injuries.

Israeli forces also arrested five Palestinians in the West Bank in swoops for suspected Palestinians, the army said.

On Thursday, a group linked to Arafat’s Fatah faction took responsibility for the West Bank killing of a 70-year-old trader from northern Israel.

Masoud Elon’s scorched body was found in a valley near the Jewish settlement of Bekaot. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said in a statement to Hizbollah’s Al-Manar television that it killed a “Jewish settler” to avenge the killing of a Palestinian.

Meanwhile, calm returned yesterday to the nearby detention camp of Ofer, where clashes pitted Palestinian prisoners against their Israeli guards the previous night.

The prisoners, many of them held in administrative detention and who are crammed in over-populated tents, burned some of them in protest at their living conditions, the Palestinian “Prisoners Club” said.

Some 50 of them were injured by Israeli forces, who put down the riot with tear gas and stun grenades, detainees said. (Agencies)