Two Palestinians have been killed during an Israeli military raid in the northern West Bank, according to Palestinian health officials.
The Israeli military said it moved into the Nour Shams refugee camp, near the town of Tulkarem, on Sunday to destroy what it described as a militant command centre and bomb-storage facility in a building.
It said engineering units detonated a number of bombs planted under roads and that militants opened fire and hurled explosives, as troops responded with live fire.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said two men – Asid Abu Ali, 21, and Abdulrahman Abu Daghash, 32 — were killed by Israeli fire. The raid caused heavy damage to roads and the suspected building.
Israel has been carrying out stepped-up military raids, primarily in the northern West Bank, for the past 18 months in what it says is a campaign to root out Palestinian militants and thwart future attacks.
Palestinians say the raids entrench Israel’s 56-year occupation over the West Bank.
The raids have shown little sign of slowing the fighting and contributed to the weakening of the Palestinian Authority, the self-rule government that administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Some 190 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the year, according to a tally by The Associated Press.
Israel says most of those killed have been militants, but youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in the confrontations have also died.
At least 31 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis this year.
The tensions have begun to spread over the past week to the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of Palestinians have been holding daily demonstrations along the fence separating the territory from Israel.
On Saturday, Israeli airstrikes hit a militant site for the second time in as many days after Palestinians sent incendiary balloons into Israeli farmland and Palestinian protesters threw stones and explosives at soldiers at the separation fence.
