JERUSALEM, Oct. 23 (Xinhuanet) --The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) intensified operations in the West Bank on Sunday in response to resurging violence in the area, the local paper The Jerusalem Post said.

   Israeli security forces arrested 23 Palestinians in the West Bank overnight, after a Palestinian from the village of Dir-Nizam, west of Ramallah, was killed by Israeli gunfire Saturday night, the paper said.

   IDF sources said the soldiers spotted two Palestinians as they placed a suspicious-looking bag near the Jewish settlement of Neveh Tzuf and fired at them.

   The second man was wounded and detained and he said the bag contained a dummy bomb.

   Earlier, Israeli soldiers staging a routine arrest of wanted Palestinian fugitives nabbed 10 kg of explosives in a West Bank village.

   "The wife of one of the fugitives held her baby with two hands and held a bag with a hand grenade underneath its shirt to hide it from the soldiers," said Lt.-Col. Arik Chen, commander of the battalion.

   The predawn raid in the village of Atzira Shamaliyeh north of Nablus ended peacefully after soldiers quickly separated the hand grenade from the mother and baby.

  "She didn't have much to say," Chen told Army radio.

   Chen said his force staged the raid on five separate houses after a tip-off that members of Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were hiding weapons there.

   "After we cordoned off the houses we started searching them. In one house we found a suitcase in a closet that contained 10 kg of TAPT explosives," Chen said. "It looked like a totally innocent bag until you opened it."

   Five suspected terrorists were apprehended.

   The raid came after IDF troops shot dead one Palestinian gunman and wounded another later Friday in the village of Anabta near Tulkarum. The army said the Palestinians had opened fire on an IDF patrol and the soldiers returned fire. 

   Since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip on Sept. 12, violence in the West Bank has resurged.  Enditem