Two Palestinian Hamas militants and a child were killed during a shootout with Israeli troops in the West Bank today, the army and witnesses said.
Thaer Syuri, 11, was hit in the head by shrapnel from an Israeli tank as he watched a firefight that began when soldiers besieged a building in Hebron, the Palestinian witnesses said.
But an Israeli military official later said the boy may have died in a fall.
A senior army officer said soldiers surrounded the house before dawn to arrest at least three Hamas members after an intelligence tip-off that they were plotting to carry out a suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem.
After evacuating residents, the Israelis opened tank and machinegun fire at the two lower storeys, witnesses said.
Israeli military sources said the soldiers fired only after militants they were trying to persuade to surrender shot at them. Over 12 hours later, soldiers found two bodies in the house. The army said they were members of the Islamist group Hamas.
Another unidentified person in the building was evacuated to an Israeli hospital. A girl of 18 was also wounded nearby.