Ramallah, October 24 (QNA) – The Israeli occupation forces were pressing ahead with their assault on the West Bank, including Jerusalem, detaining almost 70 Palestinians across the territory’s governorates from Friday through early Saturday, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society warned in a statement today.

The statement added that some had subsequently been released, while arrests and field interrogations continued to sweep up hundreds of people. Israeli occupation authorities had also announced the launch of an all-out military operation centered on Hebron following an attack there.

The bulk of those arrested were former prisoners who had spent years in Israeli jails, while a substantial number of those subjected to field interrogations were also former detainees, including Palestinians released under prisoner-exchange deals, the statement continued.

The raids had swept through hundreds of homes in Hebron, accompanied by the forced displacement of Palestinians from designated areas of the city. The Israeli occupation forces had also converted dozens of homes into military barracks used as field-interrogation centers, while carrying out widespread vandalism, destruction and searches of homes and their contents, it said.

The incursions and arrests weren’t confined to Hebron but spilled over into several governorates, targeting in particular the homes of former prisoners, released detainees and families of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Ramallah, Qalqilya, Jenin, Nablus, Jericho, Salfit, Tubas, Bethlehem, Tulkarm and Jerusalem, the statement noted.

The statement stressed that Israeli authorities seize on every operation targeting their soldiers as a pretext for upping the ante on retaliatory policies against Palestinians. The resulting crackdown encompasses large-scale detentions and raids, the flattening of homes, forced displacement and further restrictions and sieges. (QNA)