Israeli soldier lightly hurt by rock during overnight West Bank riot

An Israeli soldier was lightly injured by a rock in the predawn hours of Thursday when riots broke out during an arrest raid in the West Bank city of Nablus, the army said.

Palestinians threw stones and cement blocks at soldiers, who responded with live fire and crowd dispersal methods, the Israel Defense Forces said.

The soldier received medical treatment on the scene, according to the army.

During the overnight raids, “a violent riot broke out during which hundreds of rioters threw stones and cement blocks at our forces,” the army said. “The troops responded with crowd dispersal means and gunfire to disperse the clashes.”

An IDF spokesperson said that soldiers arrested a number of suspects in Nablus, despite the riot.

In total, Israeli troops arrested 11 suspects in raids across the West Bank on Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, the army said.

The suspects were believed to be involved in terrorist activities or to have taken part in violent riots, according to the IDF.

In addition, the military seized thousands of shekels that it said belonged to the Hamas terror group in the central West Bank city of Husan.

The IDF also seized a car in Hebron, which it said was being used for “terrorist purposes.”

Last month, a soldier from the elite Duvdevan army unit, Ronen Lubarsky, 20, died after being critically injured when a marble slab was dropped on his head during an operation to arrest suspected terrorists in the West Bank’s al-Am’ari refugee camp near Ramallah.

The elite troops had been on a mission to arrest members of a terror cell who had been carrying out shooting attacks. One member of the cell was nabbed during the raid and two more several hours later, the army said. That raid was based on intelligence information obtained in coordination with the Shin Bet security agency.