Palestinian gunmen among three killed in Israeli Nablus raid

Three Palestinians have been shot dead and several wounded by Israeli forces in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.

Witnesses described hearing gunfire and explosions as Israeli troops raided several houses in the crowded Balata refugee camp, in what they said was the biggest operation there in years.

The Israeli military says gunmen shot at its soldiers, who returned fire.

It says the soldiers found three M16 rifles, ammunition and an explosives workshop. Three arrests were made.

Israeli-Palestinian violence has been intensifying for months with near-nightly Israeli military raids in the West Bank and rising settler violence as well as a series of deadly attacks by Palestinians on Israelis.

Funerals have taken place for the three men who were killed during the latest raid in Nablus. Two have been identified as fighters from the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction.

Palestinian sources say these two men were killed in an exchange of fire with Israeli forces, while it was unclear if the third man had joined in the fighting.

Security camera footage being shared on social media, which cannot immediately be independently verified by the BBC, appears to show that one man was unarmed when shot while approaching a soldier.

Palestinian reports said that Israeli troops entered Balata camp accompanied by bulldozers and that they blocked ambulances from entering.

"All night we didn't sleep, we stayed awake, we were afraid, in horror," a resident of the camp, Um Abdullah, told al-Quds TV.

"We were sitting inside the house and a friend of my son called to say: 'They're going to demolish the house next-door, you need to leave.' Within a few seconds they demolished the house and our windows and doors fell down. We stayed inside and then ran away."

In a statement, the spokesman for the Palestinian presidency, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, condemned what he called "a real massacre and a continuation of the all-out war Israel is waging against the Palestinian people".

He called for the US administration to intervene to put a stop "to the Israeli madness that will drag the region towards an explosion".

Overnight, the Israeli military says it made more than a dozen arrests across the West Bank, including three in Jenin. Like Nablus, Jenin has recently seen a concentration of Israeli army raids and has been a hotbed for Palestinian militants.

On Sunday, the Israeli military said a soldier was lightly wounded in a car ramming attack in the village of Hawara, close to Nablus. A search for the driver is continuing.

Earlier this month, two Palestinians were killed and others wounded by Israeli army gunfire during another arrest raid in Balata camp.