Five killed in West Bank gun battle

Four Palestinians, including a father and his teenage son, and one Israeli soldier were killed today in a fierce night-time gun battle in a West Bank refugee camp, Palestinian officials and the army said.

The fighting erupted while Israeli troops were carrying out an arrest operation in the Ein Beit Ilma refugee camp in Nablus, the army said. An Israeli army officer was killed and three other soldiers were wounded, two of them seriously, in the fighting, the army said.

Khaled Sallah, a professor at Nablus’s A-Najah University, and his 16-year-old son, Mohammed, were killed while in their house, Palestinian hospital officials said.

The two others killed in the fighting were senior members of the Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine, the officials added.