Israeli forces kill three Palestinians in West Bank

Jerusalem, Undefined (AFP):

Three Palestinian fighters were killed in an overnight Israeli army raid in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian sources.

In a statement Monday, the Palestinian health ministry identified the three men killed in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus as Muhammad Abu Zaytoun (32), Fathi Abu Rizk (30) and Abdullah Abu Hamdan (24).

The Israeli army did not immediately comment when contacted by AFP.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, said in a statement that the three were among the group’s “fighters”.

Witnesses told AFP that Israeli forces raided several houses in the camp overnight in search of people “wanted” by the army.

Gunfire and loud explosions rocked the camp, the witnesses said, adding that a house was demolished.

The West Bank has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War.

Nearly three million Palestinians live there, along with about 490,000 Israelis in settlements considered to be illegal under international law.

The latest deaths come just over a week into a fragile Gaza ceasefire after a five day cross-border conflict between Israel and the Islamic Jihad group.

On Sunday night, an Israeli soldier was lightly wounded in a car-ramming attack in the northern West Bank town of Huwara near Nablus, the Israeli army said, adding that the vehicle fled the scene.

Since the start of the year, at least 153 Palestinians, 20 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian have been killed in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources from both sides.