Three Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed on Wednesday midnight during fierce clashes in the West Bank cities of Nablus and Jenin between Palestinian militants and Israeli troops, Palestinian medical sources and eyewitnesses reported.
The sources said that two Palestinians and an Israeli soldier were killed during a fierce gunbattle that took place in the outskirts of Nablus. The witnesses said that four Israeli army tanks and armored vehicles were damaged.
They said that more than 200 Israeli tanks, personnel carriers and armored vehicles are trying to enter Nablus from eight entrances, adding that the movement of the tanks is slow because of the Palestinian armed resistance.
The city, with a population of 180,000 Palestinians, will become the sixth town raided by the Israeli army as part of the widespread offensive against the West Bank that began on Friday.
Palestinians also said that a Palestinian was killed in the village of Ya'bad near Jenin in the West Bank, where medical sources said that the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli troops' gunfire in Jenin area mounted to seven.
Earlier, an Israeli soldier was killed during an attempt to raid Jenin refugee camp, where witnesses said that Palestinian militants damaged two tanks and took the rifles of three Israeli undercover troops.
In Bethlehem, Palestinians said that US diplomatic security officers managed to take nine Americans and four British citizens out of an area near the besieged Church of Nativity in the holy town.
Palestinians said that Israeli troops stormed the main headquarters of the Palestinian Ministry of Education in Ramallah, adding that the troops destroyed the offices, confiscated equipment and damaged computers.
Within the last six days, the Israeli army entered the West Bank towns of Ramallah, Tulkarem, Qalqilya, Jenin and Bethlehem. Nablus and Hebron are the last two towns that the army is planning to storm, then the Gaza Strip.
(Xinhua News Agency April 4, 2002)
