Israeli soldier killed during West Bank raid -army

Jenin (West Bank), Mar 16: Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli soldier taking part in a West Bank operation today (Mar 16, 2006) in which five wanted men were detained, the Israeli army said.

Elsewhere in the occupied territory, gunmen shot and wounded two Israeli motorists near a Jewish settlement, an attack that followed a military raid on a West Bank prison on Tuesday that incensed Palestinians.

Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants battled for more than an hour at a building the troops surrounded in the West Bank city of Jenin.

''One of the wanted men emerged running from the building and an exchange of fire immediately erupted between the forces and the gunmen during which one of the soldiers was killed,'' the army said in a statement.

''The gunman who had come out of the building was arrested,'' the statement said. ''The force then called on the four wanted men who remained in the building to come out. Eventually the four emerged and were arrested by the force.'' Palestinian militants have vowed to avenge Israel's raid on a prison in Jericho, where troops seized a Palestinian militant leader accused of ordering the 2001 assassination of a far-right Israeli cabinet minister.

REUTERS