The Israeli army arrested on Tuesday scores of Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron, while its troops advanced into Gaza and razed farms, witnesses and security sources said.

A number of Israeli troops raided several houses in Dora town, west of Hebron, and arrested 21 Palestinians, security sources in the city reported.

The arrested men were driven to an unrevealed spot.

Earlier on Tuesday, Israel Radio quoted an Israeli army spokesperson as saying "the arrested men were wanted by Israel for carrying out 'terror' attacks against settlers in Hebron".

Israeli forces have been storming the settlement-dotted West Bank cities to arrest "wanted activists", while the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) has been asking Israel to stop its military operations there to enable the Palestinian security forces to enforce law and order in the territory.

In the Hamas-ruled Gaza, the Israeli army sent a number of bulldozers, backed by tanks, to the eastern parts of the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, witnesses said.

Israel placed the territory under a tight sea and land blockade since Hamas violent takeover in 2007 to weaken the Islamic movement which calls for the annihilation of the Jewish state.

Witnesses in the area told Xinhua that the troops advanced under heavy gunfire and leveled large farms of wheat and vegetables.

Israeli troops advance occasionally into the area neighboring the border fence alongside the Gaza Strip where they enforce a 300- meter-wide buffer zone to deter Gaza militants from launching rockets or carry out military operations against troops patrolling the area.