NABLUS, West Bank, August 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Hours after destroying the home of a Palestinian activist in Tulkarem, Israel sent tanks and helicopters into Jenin city and refugee camp in the northern West Bank Monday morning, August 26, Palestinian security officials said.

Five Apache gunships and several dozen armored vehicles were sweeping the area for suspected fighters, the sources added, without reporting any abductions, and a curfew was slapped on the city and the refugee camp, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

At dawn on Monday, Israeli occupation troops blew up the home of a Palestinian activist in the West Bank town of Tulkarem, witnesses and an army spokesman said.

The operation targeted the house of Mansour Sharem, a member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, the military wing of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah group, AFP reported.

The destruction of the two-story house also damaged several neighboring buildings, the Palestinian witnesses said.

An army spokesman confirmed the operation, saying that Mansour Sharem was a bodyguard for Al-Aqsa head Raed Karmi, said AFP adding that so far this month Israeli occupation forces have demolished some 28 houses of Palestinian resistance activists.

Meanwhile, AFP reported that the Israeli government bowed to pressure from the military and ruled out any imminent pullback from Al-Khalil (Hebron) on Sunday, August 25, further jeopardizing an agreement for a phased withdrawal of re-occupied areas of the West Bank.

Violence erupted both in the northern territory and the Gaza Strip, where Palestinian factions continued talks on a common position and ending attacks inside Israel despite the Israeli freeze of the security plan.

“The army can only pull out of this area once it has received guarantees that calm will be maintained” by the Palestinian Authority, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer told army radio Sunday morning.

“It still isn’t the case in Hebron,” he said, effectively freezing the fledgling security plan for a pullout from reoccupied areas in exchange for a Palestinian crackdown on fighters.

The August 18 understanding, started with a withdrawal from Bethlehem. But Ben Eliezer apparently bowed to pressure from top army brass not to extend the plan to Hebron before the end of the Jewish holidays a month from now.

Arafat’s top adviser, Nabil Abu Rudeina, told AFP Israel’s decision to freeze the withdrawals was a “dangerous step which will lead to more violence.”

On Sunday, 13 Palestinian factions continued their bid to reach a common position.

Senior Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh did not elaborate on the results of Sunday’s discussions but told AFP the talks would continue on a unity document which Muslim groups have sought to amend. Yahya urged those meeting to rethink “their strategy of resistance,” two days after he met with the National and Islamic Forces, the umbrella organization which groups the factions.

At that meeting, Hamas and Islamic Jihad had rejected his appeals for their cooperation on the joint security plan.

In another development, the Israeli army has ordered restrictions on the sale of chemical products in the West Bank that could be used for explosive devices, it said Sunday night, reported AFP.

The army has put controls on products like acid, sulphur and nitrate “as part of the war against the terrorist infrastructure,” it said in a statement.

“This measure was taken because terrorist organizations utilize chemical materials to prepare explosive devices,” it added.

To use these products for commercial or private purposes, Palestinians must now obtain authorization from the army.

Without permission, the army will confiscate the materials, the statement warned.