Israeli troops kill five in West Bank strikes

ISRAELI troops traded gunfire with Palestinians yesterday and arrested 50 suspected terrorists after the army swept into the West Bank City of Nablus backed by 150 armoured vehicles in a retaliatory strike for several Palestinian attacks on Israel.

In overnight clashes and army operations in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, five Palestinians were killed and at least six houses were destroyed. Also, Israeli officials approved orders to expel two relatives of suspected Palestinian attackers from the West Bank to Gaza.

Early yesterday, an El Al Israel Airlines plane reached New York, carrying the bodies of two of the five American victims of the Hebrew University bombing, in which seven people died and more than 80 were wounded on Wednesday.