Report By Maha Abdulhadi, IOL’s Palestine Correspondent

NABLUS, June 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Nearly a month after the deadly Israeli incursions early April left massive destruction in Nablus, the tragedy is being repeated in the battered Palestinian city.

The bleak picture reappeared June 4 in the city’s refugee camps, especially Balata and Al-Ain, on the fifth day of reoccupation. In Balata, the Israeli occupation forces destroyed homes, burnt cars and blew up the doors of stores.

Israeli soldiers also dug trenches in the streets, destroyed water pipes and fired bullets at water tanks on the houses’ rooftops. Litter and garbage have gathered in heaps everywhere and soldiers are roaming the streets threatening everyone and imposing a curfew.

The Israeli army have further randomly abducted many Palestinians in Balata, tied their hands behind their backs, beat them up and dragged them to detention centers where they usually get their share of torture.

Men between 14 to 45 are dragged to detention centers near the city and are kept in the open while being handcuffed.

Many of those released say that the Israeli army abducted nearly 4000 Palestinians from the camp, whose population is 40,000. Everyone released from the camp is taken to another nearby camp and is not allowed to go back to his house in Balata.

One of the released detainees, Abu Rida, told IslamOnline’s correspondent Tuesday, June 4, that he was detained with nine others living in his neighborhood and was transferred to the Hawara camp near Nablus and was forced by Israeli soldiers to stay in the open under direct sunlight, and at night they were kept in the same place in the cold.

He said the abducted were all questioned without being accused of any crime; the questioning was done haphazardly in an attempt to scare them. Abu Rida added that the Israeli army did not find anything to ask him except for the names of his five children. “It was obvious that I was not accused of anything but that they only wanted to humiliate us,” he said.

The Israeli army took away the younger men, aged 16 to 20, and kept them in separate tents for special investigations since most of those who carry out martyr operations are from this age group, he said.

The Israeli army claims that the incursions in Nablus and in Balata are aimed at arresting activists from the Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades, who are accused of the last two attacks in Petah Tikvah and in the Itmar Jewish settlement in which 4 Israeli soldiers were killed and dozens were injured.

In Al-Ain camp, the Israeli forces gathered the men on the west entrance and arrested many others. Witnesses said that Israeli soldiers asked them to gather in front of the camp and five planes hovered over the camp to protect the soldiers. At a later point, the men were transferred to the Hawara camp and then the soldiers entered the camp and destroyed walls to go from one house to another.