Israeli troops on Thursday martyred three Palestinians during a firefight in a West Bank city, and another in a separate incident, Palestinian officials said.
The gunfire came during the latest in scores of near-daily raids the army has carried out through much of this year in the occupied West Bank following a series of deadly attacks on Israelis.
The surging violence has sparked global alarm. Israeli forces said no troops were hurt in the exchange of fire with Palestinians in the city of Jenin. The Palestinian health ministry said three people embraced martyrdom “by bullets from the Israeli occupation during its aggression in Jenin at dawn”.
Troops entered to detain people “suspected of involvement in terrorist activity”, the Israeli military said. “The soldiers operated while being targeted with direct fire and responded with live fire,” the army said in a statement.
The Islamic Jihad group said its fighters engaged in “fierce clashes” with Israeli forces in the northern West Bank city. Mahmud al-Saadi, head of the Palestinian Red Crescent in Jenin, told AFP an ambulance crew came under fire “from a building where Israeli snipers were present” while it was evacuating a wounded person.