Israeli troops Thursday forced the mother of a wanted Palestinian militant to beg her son to surrender and then blew up the house in which he was allegedly hiding, Palestinian security officials and witnesses said.
"Imad if you are inside, give yourself up," pleaded Sanaa Akkubeh, 50, through a loudspeaker mounted on a military jeep.
Some 20 jeeps backed by armoured vehicles and two bulldozers surrounded the Akkubeh's family house in this West Bank town in a bid to arrest Imad Akkubeh, 32, the sources said.
The residents were evacuated to a storage room at the time of the raid, and the army later dynamited the three-storey Nablus house, which was home to 40 people or six families.
At least 10 other buildings were damaged in the explosion, two of them left no longer inhabitable. Several cars were also crushed by debris, residents said.
Palestinian sources could not immediately establish whether Akkubeh was trapped inside at the time or had fled the scene. The soldiers withdrew from the area soon after the controlled blast.
An Israeli military spokesman said earlier that an "activity is underway in Nablus, not a large-scale operation, to arrest a terrorist."
Palestinian security sources said the wanted man belonged to the Returns Brigades - a small armed group loosely affiliated to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah party.
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