Palestinian killed in West Bank gun battle

One Palestinian was killed today as Israeli soldiers fought gunmen in a fierce battle in a West Bank refugee camp.

The troops were hunting for a top fugitive from the militant Islamic group Hamas in the Askar camp near Nablus. An Israeli spokesman said they came under fire from a three-storey block of flats and shot back.

They fired an anti-tank missile at the building’s third floor, setting off several explosions. The military said the source of the blasts was either a crude explosives lab or a weapons cache.

Today’s battle came after a month of relative calm that followed a ceasefire declared by the main Palestinian militant groups on June 29.

Though the truce has dramatically reduced the level of violence, the Israeli military continues to try to arrest Palestinian terror suspects.

The army would not name the target of the raid, but residents said they thought it was probably Khamis Abu Salem, 23, who rented a room in the building as a hide-out.

Also today, an Israeli government source said Israel could alter the route of a series of fences, trenches, razor wire and a wall that is being built between Israel and the West Bank.

Israel says it meant to keep suicide bombers and other attackers out of Israel. The Palestinians are angry because parts of it plunge deep into the West Bank to include some Jewish settlements on the “Israeli” side.

A first 90-mile stretch has been finished in the northern West Bank and two fences – 12 miles altogether – have sealed off Jerusalem’s northern and southern outskirts from the West Bank.

The US has threatened it might reduce aid to Israel if construction continues on sections of the barrier that are built beyond Israel’s line with the West Bank.

“We have concerns about that fence,” US Secretary of State Colin Powell said. “We have problems with it. We have expressed our concerns to the Israelis, and the Israelis are considering the problems that we have identified to them. We expect that dialogue to continue until we can find a solution.”