The Israeli army shot dead six Palestinian militants in the refugee camp of Jenin this morning, bringing to 11 those killed in 12 hours of violence in the northern West Bank.
The tough action came as the army tried to explain away its worst blunder by its army since the beginning of the Palestinian uprising 29 months ago, after troops killed two Israelis they had mistaken for Palestinian militants.
"Our forces entered the camp from several points and spotted two armed men on the roof of a house and shot them down. Then they entered the house and killed another four gunmen," a military sources said.
Palestinian medical sources could only confirm five deaths. "Our men discovered an M-16 and three Kalashnikov assault rifles, as well as grenades, bullet-proof jackets and Israeli army uniforms inside the house," the military sources claimed.
According to Palestinian security sources, among the dead were four members of the hardline Islamic Jihad movement and one from the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah group.
The operation was one of the deadliest inside the West Bank in several weeks and came less than 12 hours after another operation left five Palestinians dead in the nearby village of Tammun, a bastion of radical militancy.
Yesterday afternoon, Israeli troops preparing to ambush Palestinian militants near the southern city of Hebron misidentified their target and killed two Israelis, both of them former officers from the elite Golani Brigade.
The picture of their bullet-riddled vehicle was splashed all over the front pages of Israeli newspapers Friday and revived the controversy over trigger-happy troops in the occupied territories.
AFP