The Israeli army has been accused of blocking the entrances to hospitals in the West Bank town of Ramallah, which it reoccupied earlier today.
Mustapha Barghuti, head of a Palestinian medical association, told AFP"The military has blocked the entrances to the two main hospitals in the town, preventing the sick from entering or leaving."
He said the army was letting ambulances go through, but only after "unceasing controls." The Israeli army denied blocking the buildings, but said soldiers were posted there to stop Palestinians from taking refuge in the hospitals.
The army said it was checking identities, but it was not stopping Palestinians from seeking medical help, an Israeli military source said.
Barghuti said he was worried that people would suffer from hunger if the curfew the army imposed on the city lasted much longer. At least 70 Israeli tanks rumbled into Ramallah before dawn today and fanned out around the city in the hunt for Palestinian militants, in the second move on the city in four days.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's compound was surrounded and its entrances sealed off with rubble.
The compound was pummelled by Israeli fire when troops stormed the town last Thursday, the day after a suicide bombing killed 17 Israelis in northern Israel.
Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said the latest occupation of Ramallah would end within one or two days.
AFP