JERUSALEM – Israeli forces yesterday destroyed six houses used by snipers in the Gaza Strip and placed Jerusalem on a high alert for a possible bomb attack.
At least 22 people were wounded but no deaths were reported in the latest round of violence that has killed more than 700 people since the Palestinian uprising began last September.
The first confrontation began after midnight when four Israeli tanks and two bulldozers began razing buildings in the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip.
Israeli officials said the houses were uninhabited but often used as cover for Palestinian riflemen and grenade-throwers attacking an Israeli border outpost.
Later in the day, a bomb exploded at a soldier’s hitchhiking station near a popular McDonald’s restaurant close to the town of Tiberias in northern Israel. No one was hurt.
Another explosion took place in the Ramallah home of Qais Abdel Karim, a leader of the terrorist Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Abdel Karim, widely known as Abu Layla, was not hurt, and his neighbors denied he was the target of an Israeli attack.
Last night, a huge police force was deployed in the center of Jerusalem due to what officials calls a “hot alert” of a possible car bombing or suicide bombing.
The previous night, po- lice caught two Ramallah men armed with automatic rifles who were headed for Jerusalem to carry out an attack inside the capital, officials said.
Security has been tight in Jerusalem since a bomb destroyed a packed Sbarro restaurant last month, killing 15 people and injuring dozens.