Israel kills senior Palestinian militant in West Bank

NABLUS, West Bank, June 21 (Reuters) Israeli soldiers today shot dead a senior Palestinian militant during a raid to arrest suspects in the West Bank city of Nablus, medics and Israeli military officials said.

They said a local commander of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, died in the raid.

The Israeli army said the dead militant, Dahoud Katouni, 24, was behind a suicide bombing in March that killed four Israelis near a Jewish settlement.

''Two armed men approached the forces and the soldiers opened fire at them. One of the terrorists was killed and another was wounded,'' an army spokesman said.

The violence came amid an escalation in Israeli-Palestinian tensions. An Israeli air strike aimed at militants killed three children in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, in stepped up Israeli raids on armed groups firing rockets at southern Israel.

REUTERS SY BD1253