(KUNA) -- A spokesman for the Israeli occupation army announced that Israeli soldiers arrested Wednesday about 30 Palestinians during an operation carried out near the Gaza International Airport in the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.The spokesman told the Hebrew Radio that the Israeli special forces, backed by tanks, penetrated this morning in the airport area east of the town of Rafah and arrested the Palestinians and took them to be interrogated inside Israel.
Palestinain eyewitnesses said that the Israeli special forces raided a large number of Palestinian houses in the neighborhood of Jeradat near the Gaza International Airport and ransacked them prior to the arrest of the 30 men.
Some of the arrestees were beaten, according to the eyewitnesses. They told KUNA that the occupation forces in the area were exposed to shootings by Palestinian resistance fighters who confronted the Israeli incursion, which continued for several hours.