Nablus (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Israeli forces killed three Palestinians Tuesday during a daytime raid against what Israel described as a "terrorist cell", leaving a vehicle in the West Bank city of Nablus riddled with bullet holes.
Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz praised the raid and said he had ordered an increase in "counterterrorism activities" due to recent shootings in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel's army since the 1967 Six Day War.
The Palestinian health ministry and Israel's security forces both confirmed the three deaths.
Israel's border police and internal security agency, the Shin Bet, released a statement identifying the dead as "armed terrorists who were...killed during clashes with the security forces".
The Palestinian Authority condemned the raid as a "summary execution".
Israeli police said the three were responsible for recent shooting attacks on Israeli troops and civilians, adding that no Israeli personnel were hurt in the operation.
Sources in the Palestinian Fatah movement identified two of the dead as Adham Mabrouk and Muhammad al-Dakhil, who they said were affiliated with the militant Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.
According to a Palestinian security source, "Israeli soldiers who were in a civilian vehicle intercepted a Palestinian vehicle and directly fired at it, which led to the deaths of three young men."
AFP reporters in Nablus saw a bullet-riddled windshield of a silver car that eyewitnesses said Israeli forces targeted.
The witnesses, who requested anonymity citing security concerns, said one of the vehicles carrying Israeli forces was a yellow taxi.
'No immunity'
Defence minister Gantz said the raid "eliminated the terrorist cell that carried out shooting attacks in recent weeks", while Prime Minister Naftali Bennett boasted in a tweet that "terrorists have no immunity".
Hundreds of Palestinians thronged the streets outside the Rafidia hospital in Nablus as the bodies of the men were carried out.
The PA foreign ministry statement said in a statement that it "holds the Israeli government headed by Naftali Bennett fully and directly responsible for this heinous crime".
Ties between the PA, led by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, and Israel remain fraught, though there have been signs of a thaw in recent months following a series of high-level meetings, including Gantz hosting Abbas at his home.
But Palestinian assailants have continued to attack Israeli forces in the West Bank, and Israel has responded with lethal force and frequent raids against groups it describes as militant cells.
Some 475,000 Israelis live in settlements among around 2.9 million Palestinians in the West Bank, fuelling tensions in the area that Palestinians claim as a part of their future state.
Bennett, the former head of a settler lobbying council, opposes Palestinian statehood and has ruled out formal peace talks with the PA under his watch, saying he will focus instead on improving economic conditions in the West Bank.
