RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Palestinian eyewitnesses reported that Israeli settlers stormed Thursday morning the Burin town, south of Nablus, and set fire to lumber used in the construction of a workshop which led to the burning of all pieces of wood.

The eyewitnesses added that the settlers cut the workshop's water pipe before their withdrawal, but the Nablus fire department rushed to the scene and extinguished the fire.

They said that those Israeli assailants might have come from the nearby settlements of Bracha or Yitzhar whose settlers are notorious for waging attacks on Arab villages.

Meanwhile, an Israeli special force boarding civilian cars stormed Thursday the Faisal street, downtown Nablus, and kidnapped one of the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Brigades' activists called Adham Labada from his workplace at a shop.

Labada is one of Al-Aqsa Brigades' activists who have been granted an amnesty by Israel in exchange for renouncing resistance activities against the occupation.

A large number of IOF troops invaded at night Wednesday amid intensive gunfire the Makhfia area and the Tal street, west of Nablus, and kidnapped five young men after breaking into and ransacking houses in the area.

Clashes took place between the citizens and the invading troops in the stormed areas, according to eyewitnesses.

The Hebrew radio quoted an Israeli military spokesman as saying that the IOF troops kidnapped at dawn Thursday 17 Palestinians, seven of them were rounded up in Nablus and the rest in the West Bank cities of Qalqilya, Tulkarem, Bethlehem and Al-Khalil.

The IOF troops also waged a compaign of widespread raids on houses belonging to Palestinian citizens affiliated with the Hamas Movement in the Kafr Dan town, west of Jenin in the West Bank.