Tel Aviv, Mar. 9, (dpa/GNA) - Israeli soldiers shot and killed three Palestinians inside a vehicle in the West Bank on Thursday.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah confirmed the deaths.
The Israeli army said security forces had entered the town of Jaba, south of the city of Jenin, to arrest several terrorist suspects.
During the operation, they were shot at from a vehicle and they returned fire, an army statement said. Two members of the militant organization Islamic Jihad and another gunman were “neutralized,” it said.
The troops seized two rifles, a pistol and several explosive devices and arrested three other suspects. Pictures from the scene showed an almost completely destroyed car.
Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have been running high.
Six Palestinians were killed from gunshot wounds in an Israeli military deployment in Jenin in the northern West Bank on Tuesday.
According to the Israeli army, one of them was involved in the deaths of two Israeli brothers in Huwara at the end of February. The man was said to have been a member of the military arm of the Islamist Palestinian organization Hamas which controls the Gaza strip.
Israel took over the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967. Today, more than 600,000 Israeli settlers live there. The Palestinians claim the territories for a future independent state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital.
GNA