The Israeli army and police said their forces, sent into Tulkarm to detain suspected fighters, came under fire and killed several Palestinian gunmen in the ensuing skirmish.

An Israeli airstrike hit a group of Palestinians who shot and threw a bomb at the group, an army and police statement said. The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said that the airstrike was carried out by a drone and killed three people.

There was no word of Israeli casualties and no Palestinian armed faction said it had lost members in the incident.

An eighth Palestinian was killed by Israeli gunfire today in Beit Aynoun, north of the city of Hebron in the southern West Bank, medical officials said.

Israel has been striking armed groups in the West Bank with increasing intensity as it wages war on Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, another territory where Palestinians seek to establish an independent state.

Anger over the fighting has risen in the West Bank and many parts of the Arab world, and calls for a ceasefire in Hamas-controlled Gaza are growing.