An IDF preventative operation that began on Wednesday night in the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Shechem ended Friday morning. Troops killed one armed terrorist, arrested nine others, and uncovered weapons, ammunition and a laboratory used by PA terrorist forces. Seven soldiers were injured since the start of the operation, two of them seriously.
Shechem has become known as the capital of terrorism in Samaria, the region north of Jerusalem.
IDF soldiers spotted an armed Arab getting out of a cab in Shechem Friday morning and immediately eliminated him, though the cab escaped the scene. The Arab was later identified as Fatah terrorist Haitem Tzalah. All of the weapons and ammunition on his body were confiscated by the Israeli troops.
By Friday morning, nine terrorists had been arrested by the IDF in the Shechem operation. MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union party) said Friday that the IDF's operation in Shechem was pointless, because at the same time that the IDF is arresting terrorists, the Prime Minister has given instructions for freeing 250 others.
"Soldiers' lives are put at risk at the very same time that the government's other hand is giving money to terror and releasing terrorists," Eldad protested.
Downtown Shechem was placed under curfew Thursday in the wake of several bombing attacks on IDF soldiers operating in the city, located 25 miles east of Herzilya. Dozens of terrorists laid ambushes for soldiers along the narrow roads of Shechem, carrying out bombing and shooting attacks intermittently since Wednesday night. The IDF operation involved elite ground forces and was led by 50 armored vehicles, which provided cover as soldiers conducted house-to-house searches. In one incident, involving no injuries, an army vehicle rolled over an enemy mine.
By Thursday night, soldiers had uncovered a terrorist laboratory in Shechem, as well as a weapons cache that included a pipe bomb, a Kalaschnikov rifle, a pistol and hand grenades. House-to-house searches turned up at least one M16 assault rifle. In the Shechem terrorist laboratory, IDF troops found three explosive devices, weighing 11 pounds each, as well as equipment used to manufacture bombs, ammunition and various weapons.
During clashes Wednesday night, two IDF soldiers were seriously wounded in enemy bomb attacks. One of the soldiers was rushed to the Sheba Hospital at Tel Hashomer 
Two IDF soldiers were seriously wounded in enemy bomb attacks.
Medical Center, near Ramat Gan. Two other soldiers were moderately wounded in the attacks. They were taken to Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikva. Three soldiers were also lightly wounded in shooting and bombing attacks overnight and into Thursday.
An Arab man attempted to throw a Molotov cocktail at IDF soldiers on Thursday afternoon during clashes between soldiers and terrorists in Shechem. Soldiers fired at the man's legs, hitting and wounding him. Overall, PA sources said Thursday that five Arabs had been wounded in the fighting, but did not give details. IDF sources reported that one Fatah terrorist was apprehended by the troops in Shechem.
The raid on the city in central Samaria prompted newly appointed PA Prime Minister Salam Fayed to charge that Israel is trying to undermine his government, which was convened on an emergency basis by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The new PA government excludes members of the powerful Hamas terrorist group, which was elected to power in January 2006 but which recently completed an armed coup against Abbas's Fatah terror forces in Gaza.
Baruch Gordon contributed to this story.