JERUSALEM, Feb. 23 -- Israeli soldiers killed three Palestinian gunmen and two civilians in heavy fighting Thursday in the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian hospital officials and the Israeli military said. Two Israeli soldiers and 22 Palestinians were wounded in the gun battles, which unfolded in stages throughout the day.
The clashes were some of the most intense since Israel and a dozen armed Palestinian groups agreed a year ago to abide by a cease-fire. They reflect intensifying Israeli military operations in the West Bank in recent days, particularly in the volatile north.
The fighting Thursday occurred in the Balata refugee camp on the city's edge, witnesses and Israeli military officials said. The military has been operating for several days in the camp, a stronghold of the most potent Palestinian armed groups.
‘We had a lot of alerts about terror attacks against civilians and soldiers that were coming from Nablus,’ an Israeli military official said, adding that four explosive belts had been seized at a military checkpoint outside the city in recent days. ‘That basically caused us to decide that we had to operate more in the area.’
Israeli military officials said a morning patrol in the Balata camp was attacked with gasoline bombs and small-arms fire, and the soldiers returned fire. Late in the afternoon, military officials said, Palestinians opened fire from inside a house that soldiers had surrounded to carry out an arrest. Inside, the soldiers found ammunition clips and several assault rifles.
Three of the Palestinians killed were identified as members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement. One of them was Mohammed Hamdan Shtewi, 33, a member of the brigades' central committee, whose leaders immediately vowed revenge. Two others killed in the fighting were identified by Palestinian witnesses as civilians.
Hospital officials in Nablus reported treating 22 Palestinians -- one was 12 years old -- for wounds from regular and rubber-coated bullets. The dead ranged in age from 18 to 35, hospital officials said.
Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, an independent group based in Tel Aviv, said three medical workers in the Balata camp were injured in the clashes.
In a statement, the group called Israeli gunfire ‘indiscriminate’ and said that medical workers were ‘placed between stone throwers and Israeli soldiers in what seems to be the use of the 'human shield' tactic,’ which Israel's high court recently ruled was illegal.
The Israeli military ‘completely’ denied that soldiers fired indiscriminately into a crowd.