IDF Orders Expulsion of 15 Palestinian Detainees from West Bank to Gaza.

By VOA News

The Israeli military has ordered 15 Palestinian detainees expelled from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip.

The military did not identify the 15 who have already been moved to an army facility in the Gaza Strip. The men have two days to appeal the army's decision.

Last year, the Israeli military forced three relatives of Palestinian terror suspects to move from the West Bank to Gaza in an action widely denounced by human rights groups as a violation of international law. But later Israel's Supreme Court approved the practice as a deterrent to suicide attacks against Israelis.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops backed by dozens of tanks returned to a Gaza refugee camp near the border with Egypt early Tuesday. The Israeli military says soldiers are continuing an operation to destroy alleged tunnels used by Palestinian militants to smuggle weapons from Egypt.

Israeli forces previously entered the camp last Friday and left three days later, after demolishing homes and destroying tunnels. Eight Palestinians were killed in gun battles with Israeli forces during the operation. A U.N. official says as many as 120 homes were destroyed and more than one thousand Palestinians homeless.

Israel said troops only uncovered and destroyed weapons smuggling tunnels. Meanwhile, in the West Bank, Israeli troops Tuesday shot and killed an unidentified Palestinian near the Negahot Jewish settlement near Hebron. Israeli radio said the Palestinian was unarmed.