Israeli troops kill Palestinian in West Bank raid

JERICHO, West Bank, July 5 (Reuters) Israeli troops killed a Palestinian during a raid on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank today, Israeli and Palestinian security sources said.

Palestinians said he was among members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militant group, part of President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, who had been absorbed into the police following a truce early in 2005.

An Israeli military source said soldiers swooped on Ein al-Sultan camp near Jericho in search of a man wanted in connection with a Palestinian revolt that began in 2000. He was shot while trying to flee capture, the military source said.

''A mortar tube was found in his house,'' the military source said, adding the army could not confirm whether the man who was killed had worked for the police.

There was no indication the Palestinian, in his 30s, was carrying weapons at the time he was shot.

Israel Radio said the Palestinian was suspected of involvement in a deadly attack inside the Jewish state during the uprising.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, Israeli troops arrested 10 suspected militants, the army said. Raids have been stepped up during efforts to get militants in Gaza to free a captured soldier. Palestinians seek statehood in Gaza and the West Bank.

Reuters CH GC1459