A Palestinian man dies of wounds sustained in Israeli attacks in the West Bank last week, while undercover Israeli troops kidnap 30 civilians from the Gaza Strip, these stories and more coming up stay tuned.

The News Cast

A mentally challenged Palestinian man from the town of Qabatiya near Jenin in the north of the West Bank died on Thursday afternoon due to wounds he sustained last week. Taysser Nazal, 56, was injured last Thursday when the Israeli army attacked Qabatiya and kidnapped several Palestinian resistance fighters.

Dr. Mohamed Abu Ghali, the director of the public Jenin hospital, said that Nazal underwent several operations and one of his legs was amputated. Abu Ghali said that all efforts to save him failed due to severe complications because of the wounds he sustained.

Meanwhile a Palestinian teenager was critically injured on Thursday afternoon when a bomb left behind by the Israeli army exploded near him in the city of Bethlehem in the southern part of the West Bank. Sources in Bethlehem said that Ala Obayiat, 18, was trying to cut open the bomb to see what was inside it when it exploded.

Also in the West Bank, the Israeli army targeted several West Bank cities and kidnapped 13 civilians during a pre dawn invasion on Thursday.

Meanwhile in the Gaza strip today the Israeli army invaded the eastern side of the city of Rafah kidnapping 30 Palestinian civilians on Thursday morning. An undercover Israeli force attacked and searched Palestinian homes that were located near Gaza International Airport, an area which has suffered frequent Israeli attacks since the beginning of the Palestinian Intifada ['uprising'] in September 2000.

Troops rounded up 30 men between the ages of 15 and 50, and took them to a nearby military base on the Rafah-Israel border.

Later in the day, the Israeli army invaded areas on the Palestinian side of the northern Gaza-Israel border, and demolished a number of Palestinian-owned buildings. The buildings had been long abandoned, their residents having already fled due to the frequent Israeli shelling of the area.

The Israeli army announced that troops leveled the buildings because they were allegedly being used by members of the Palestinian resistance to fire homemade shells at the crossing's military position, and nearby Israeli towns.

Conclusion

Thank you for joining us from occupied Bethlehem. You have been listening to Palestine Today from the International Middle East Media Center, www.imemc.org. This report has been brought to you by Louisa White and Ghassan Bannoura.