GAZA CITY, Sept 8 (AFP) - Israeli troops staged an incursion into the northern Gaza Strip overnight in what the army said Wednesday was a bid to prevent Palestinian militants from firing rockets on southern Israel.
About 20 tanks accompanied by bulldozers and backed by attack helicopters entered the eastern part of the town of Jabaliya and took up positions near the limits of the town of Beit Lahya and on hills.
Five Palestinians were wounded during the raid, which came on the heels of a Monday night Israeli air strike in Gaza that killed 14 militants from the military wing of Hamas.
Israeli military sources said nine nine rockets had been launched over the past 48 hours, with one man lightly wounded Tuesday in the Israeli town of Sderot, just across the Gaza border.
"The whole purpose of the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) presence in northern Gaza is to stop Qassam rockets from being fired," a military source said. "It's a pinpointed operation and we cannot say at this stage how long it will last and how it will develop."
Militants from the radical Islamist organization Hamas often fire Qassam rockets -- makeshift rockets named after the group's armed wing, the Ezzedin al-Qassam Brigades -- at Israel from the northern Gaza Strip.
The nearby town of Beit Hanun was surrounded by Israeli troops and its residents prevented from leaving the area, Palestinian security sources said.
Beit Hanun was taken over by troops for over a month last year in an attempt to stop the firing of rockets after two Israelis were killed in Sderot.
Even as troops had entered the area overnight, Palestinian militants managed to fire three rockets early Wednesday, which landed in Israel's southern Negev desert but without causing any injuries, an army spokesman said.
Israeli military sources said troops were also involved in an operation in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, but gave not details.
Troops with a bulldozer also encircled a house in the southern West Bank town of Hebron where clashes broke out as they arrested a senior Hamas member.
"Two soldiers were lightly wounded by shrapnel during the arrest of a senior Hamas chief in Hebron," an army spokeswoman told AFP.
She said the militant was also wounded and later ferried to a Jerusalem hospital for treatment before being interrogated.
The man's entourage named him 32-year-old Adel Zaatari.
The army spokesman said four other wanted militants had also been arrested in the West Bank.