TAMOUN, West Bank (AP) — An arrest raid by undercover Israeli soldiers disguised as vegetable vendors ignited rare clashes in thenorthern West Bank on Tuesday, residents said, leaving at 10 Palestinians wounded.

Israeli army raids into Palestinian areas to seize activists and militants are fairly common. The raids are normally coordinated with Palestinian security forces, and suspects are usually apprehended without violence.

The clashes began early Tuesday after Israeli forces disguised as merchants in a vegetable truck arrested one man. Regular army forces then entered the town, prompting youths to hurl rocks to try to prevent more arrests.

Israeli forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition as youths set tires and bins on fire to block the passage of military vehicles. In several hours of clashes, dozens of masked youths hid behind makeshift barriers, hurling rocks and firebombs at soldiers.

Faris Bisharat, a resident of Tamoun, said 10 men were wounded, some by live fire. Bisharat said the wanted men belong to Islamic Jihad, a violent group sworn to Israel's destruction. It wasn't clear how many men Israeli forces sought to arrest. There were no immediate details on how seriously the 10 were hurt.

The Israeli military said it arrested a "terrorist affiliated with the Islamic Jihad terror group." It said two soldiers were injured during the raid.

The fighting, which broke out in several parts of the town of some 8,000 people, were a rare, angry response. It was also unusual for Israeli forces to use live fire toward Palestinian demonstrators. Israel says it uses live fire only in extremely dangerous situations.

Record gun sales were recorded in December 2012 with over 2.7 million background checks being conducted through the FBI's National Instant Check System (NICS), the agency said today. For 2012, more background checks were conducted than any year since 1998.

In December, 2,783,765 total background checks were carried out to purchase firearms, surpassing the previous record from November 2012 when 2,006,919 checks were performed.

For the year, 19,592,303 background checks carried out for firearm purchases-a 19 percent rise from 2011.

Each check doesn't represent a single gun, just a single background check transaction.

NICS has access to information from computers at the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, searching records that would prohibit a buyer from owning a gun, such as being a fugitive, having a felony conviction or charge, renouncing U.S. citizenship, or having been determined as mentally impaired. NICS was mandated by the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and set up in November 1998.

Since the NICS system was established in November 1998 a total of 160,474,702 background checks were made. Of these, around .006 percent of those attempted purchases were denied and .00008% (fewer than a hundred people a year) were prosecuted for lying on the form.

The monthly totals since 1998 can be viewed here.

The spike in sales late last year may be attributed to concern over possible new gun control regulations following the presidential election in November and the Newtown, Conn., school shooting in December.

According to FBI officials there were no problems with conducting the background checks. In November on the day after Thanksgiving, traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year the NICS system had two brief outages.

An investigation is under way. Many victims were said to be 15 or younger.

President Alassane Ouattara described the deaths as a national tragedy.

Different theories are emerging as to what caused the stampede after the fireworks display ended in the 65,000-capacity Felix Houphouet-Boigny Stadium.

Some say a group of youths brandishing knives was snatching people's mobile phones, causing panic among the large crowd, says the BBC's West Africa correspondent Thomas Fessy.

But others say security forces acted ineptly as they tried to control the many thousands walking through the city centre - triggering the stampede which has left many more people injured, some critically.

Desperate parents went to the city morgue, hospital and stadium to search for their children, AP news agency reports.

They included Mamadou Sanogo, who was looking for his nine-year-old son, Sayed, it adds.

"I have just seen all the bodies, but I cannot find my son. I don't know what to do," a tearful Mr Sanogo said.

A market vendor injured in the incident, Sanata Zoure, told Reuters news agency that revellers going home after watching the fireworks display were stopped by police near the stadium.

"We were walking with our children and we came upon barricades, and people started falling into each other. We were trampled with our children," she is quoted as saying.

Mr Ouattara visited some of the wounded who were taken to two hospitals in the country's main city and promised that the costs of their medical treatment would be covered by the government.

The fireworks event had been organised to celebrate the end of the conflict triggered by former President Laurent Gbagbo's refusal to recognise Mr Ouattara's victory in 2010 elections.

Mr Gbagbo is now facing trial on war crimes charge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The night before the tragedy, the stadium, named after Ivory Coast's founding president, hosted a concert by US performer Chris Brown.

In 2009, 19 football fans died during a crush at the same stadium before a World Cup qualifier against Malawi.