OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, May 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Israeli occupation army moved back into the autonomous Palestinian town of Tulkarem in the northern West Bank early Sunday, May 26, following an overnight raid in which Israeli soldiers killed one Palestinian.

The Israeli army said its troops entered Tulkarem at dawn and imposed a curfew, claiming it was "carrying out searches and making arrests to prevent acts of terrorism from this town," Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

It said in a statement that the troops would remain in place "until they have achieved their aims, and will continue their operations in Tulkarem to prevent any hostile activity."

Late Saturday, May 25, a Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli troops in Tulkarem during a military operation lasting more than 24 hours, Palestinian hospital sources said.

The victim was named as Wakeb Koutoub, 55, AFP said.

Around 100 Palestinians were abducted during the raid, according to Palestinian security sources, while the Israelis claim they had taken only four prisoners.

Also Sunday, a dozen Israeli tanks as well as jeeps and armored vehicles, backed by an assault helicopter, moved into the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya, witnesses said.

Israeli soldiers also continued their operation in Bethlehem which had started late Saturday, a military source said.

The army blew up the home of the head of Islamic Jihad in Bethlehem, the city Israeli troops had pulled out from two weeks ago after a five-week siege, Palestinian witnesses said.

The Bethlehem incursion came on the heels of a major Israeli sweep into the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem that lasted nearly 24 hours and saw the army net about 100 Palestinian resistance activists, Palestinian security sources said.

Armored Israeli transport vehicles entered into Bethlehem from the east and also rolled into Beit Jala, which borders the Jewish settlement of Gilo on the outskirts of east Jerusalem, witnesses said.

Bethlehem was the final West Bank city occupied as part of Israel's bloody military offensive codenamed “Operation Defensive Shield”, launched March 29, when the army seized seven of the eight major Palestinian cities in the West Bank.

Israel only left Bethlehem on May 10 after a tense siege ended at the Nativity Church, revered as the birthplace of Jesus Christ, when 13 Palestinian resistance fighters were deported to Cyprus under an E.U.-brokered deal.

In the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian woman, 45, and her 12-year-old niece were working in a field near a farm in the El-Boureij refugee camp, when they were fatally wounded by Israeli tank fire, a Palestinian security source said.

The army blocked Palestinian ambulances from entering the area and the two died from their injuries, the source said.

A Palestinian baby boy also died Saturday after his mother was forced to give birth at an Israeli army checkpoint near Bethlehem, medical sources said.

On a diplomatic front, Arafat, said he supported an international conference in the Middle East but that it was essential it be based on the Arab peace plan, in comments published by the daily Al-Quds Saturday.

The Arab proposal, drafted by Saudi Arabia and adopted at the latest Arab summit in Beirut, would offer peace to Israel in exchange for it withdrawing from Arab territory captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

U.S. President George W. Bush and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, said Friday in a joint statement issued in Moscow they had agreed to "move aggressively" towards peace and expressed their support for the conference.