Ramallah: The Israeli media highlighted on Thursday a growing level of resistance from Palestinians during raids by the Israeli military in the West Bank. Clashes were reported overnight at Beir Zeit in Ramallah, Jenin and its camp and in Bethlehem.

Palestinian political analysts argue that the main aim of the Israeli operation is provoking the Palestinian public into reacting aggressively.

Israeli military sources said that the clashes are not as serious as they were a decade ago, but have grown in intensity in recent days.

The sources told the Jerusalem Post that while an ongoing intelligence effort to gather information on the whereabouts of the abducted youths is taking place, the threat of additional kidnappings “exists all of the time throughout the West Bank, effective of these days too.”

Palestinians on the other hand have argued that there could be an abduction case in which three Israeli teens have gone missing, but the supporting search operation (which the Israelis have named ‘Brother’s Keeper’) is entirely a politically motivated operation aimed at inciting the Palestinian public to react violently.

“Israel is taking advantage of the abduction incident to put its agendas in place, hit the Palestinian unity agreement and hit both Hamas and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA),” said Dr. Gassan Al Khatib, a political analyst and commentator. “Palestinian people should endure this and avoid the kind of reaction the Israelis want to drag the Palestinians into.”

He said that the Palestinian people do not have many options in this, but their “public dissatisfaction and resentment toward the Israeli raids and other military measures imposed in the West Bank,” he told Gulf News. “Israel however has its own agendas which it wants to put in place.”

Dr. Al Khatib said that the general society in Israel is not comfortable with current events and that the general international conditions for Israel in the international arena have not been comfortable either. “The abduction case, however, softened their conditions, brought them out of that miserable case and gave them the chance to do what they had desired to do,” he said.

Overnight, Israeli military forces raided the Beir Ziet University in Ramallah and the Polytechnic University in Hebron after midnight. The Israeli forces seized flags, banners and written statements the various Palestinian students’ factions and unions used in the election campaigns conducted a month ago.

The Palestinian Prisoner Club published on Thursday the names of 50 Palestinians arrested during the ongoing raids – each was given administrative detention orders. The club said that 28 prisoners had refused to appear in useless trials but they were given administrative detention orders ranging from two months to six months in absentia.

Meanwhile, Israeli military bulldozers demolished five homes in southern Hebron in addition to several chalets and bars, two houses and several water wells in southern Bethlehem, sending tens of Palestinians homeless.