Israeli soldiers today shot dead a Palestinian man in a refugee camp in the West Bank town of Tulkarm.
Witnesses said the Israelis killed the unarmed civilian (20) without provocation, but the Israeli military claimed soldiers shot two gunmen they considered an imminent threat.
Witnesses said troops entered the Tulkarm refugee camp in jeeps and armoured personnel carriers shortly after midnight and searched several houses.
They said soldiers fired from one of the houses toward the street, killing the man passing by and wounding another. Israeli military sources said troops were on a sweep for militants when two armed men confronted them.
The Tulkarm raid followed a strike by an Israeli helicopter gunship yesterday that killed two Palestinian policemen in the Gaza Strip in the Israeli army's first operation in the coastal enclave since the US-led attack on Iraq began last week.
Israeli-Palestinian violence has continued sporadically despite Washington's appeal for calm after 30 months of conflict.
Troops have reoccupied Tulkarm and most other major West Bank towns following suicide bombings in Israel last summer.
