Israeli forces kill 6 Palestinians

WEST BANK, Sept 20 (BBC): Six Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, medics say. The funerals have taken place for three of the four killed in a late-night military raid of Jenin refugee camp, in which some 30 people were also injured.

Another young Palestinian man was killed during an Israeli raid in Jericho on Wednesday morning. The sixth was killed during violent demonstrations on Tuesday evening near the Gaza-Israel separation fence.

There was intense fighting on Tuesday night in the Jenin camp, a stronghold of Palestinian militants, where the Israeli military launched its biggest operation in years in the West Bank back in July.

In the morning, residents of the camp cleared up damage to a badly damaged house which had been surrounded by Israeli forces. It was left pockmarked with bullet holes, the floor covered in broken glass and blood stains.

Large crowds carried the bodies of three of those killed overnight through the camp as they were taken to be buried. Two were wrapped in the flags of the Islamist militant group Hamas and one in the flag of Islamic Jihad.

Umm Omar showed the dried blood around her fingernails from one young militant she had dragged into her home last night. Raafat Khamaysi was injured in the exchange of fire with Israeli forces close to her house near the entrance to the camp.

Umm Omar said that he bled for two hours before he died. The nearest hospital is less than 100m (328ft) away, but the continuing fighting prevented an ambulance getting through. The Israeli military said that its forces came under fire from local gunmen and that it carried out a rare strike using a suicide drone during the raid.

While leaving the camp, the military said, an explosive device detonated underneath one of its vehicles, so that those inside had to be rescued. No soldiers were injured. A video posted on social media appeared to show Israeli gunfire hitting the minaret of a mosque from which shots were being fired.

All four Palestinians killed were men in their 20s, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Shortly after the Israeli troops withdrew from the refugee camp, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said that gunmen shot at its compound in Jenin. Militants from the camp accused the PA, which governs parts of the West Bank not under full Israeli control, of failing to protect them.

The bloodshed in Jenin was the latest in an upsurge in violence in the West Bank, where the Israeli military says it has been carrying out counter-terrorism activities over the past year and a half. Wednesday morning saw a deadly Israeli military raid in Aqabat Jaber refugee camp in Jericho.

The local hospital said that a 19-year-old man who died was shot in the head. He has since been buried. Witnesses said that locals had thrown stones at Israeli soldiers who entered the camp.