Israeli soldiers killed a top military leader of the Islamic Jihad group this morning. Palestinian sources said Iyad Sawalha was known as the head of Islamic Jihad's military wing in the northern West Bank and at the top of Israel's wanted list for planning suicide attacks.
An Israeli military source said Sawalha was killed after he threw grenades at troops who came to arrest him in the West Bank city of Jenin. Palestinian hospital officials confirmed his death.
Witnesses said scores of Israeli forces had entered the Old City of Jenin where Sawalha was believed to be in hiding, after which gunfire and several explosions were heard.
Israeli media and witnesses said troops proceeded from house to house in the old city, breaking down walls and dynamiting doors until they found Sawalha holed up in the kitchen of one building.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat branded the killing a "crime" and the Islamic Jihad vowed to avenge Sawalha's death.
"This operation and crime will not break our strength and our resistance and our jihad will continue," Sheikh Abdallah Shami, an Islamic Jihad leader in the Gaza Strip, said.
"The Islamic Jihad will respond to this crime and our strike will be even more painful," he added.
The Islamic Jihad has been behind a series of suicide and car bombings inside Israel since the uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip flared two years ago.