Six Palestinians killed in Israeli raids in West Bank

Six Palestinians were killed and nearly 20 others injured early on Tuesday in sweeping raids by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

The Palestinian health ministry initially reported three dead and 19 wounded, three of them seriously, shot "by Israeli fire in Nablus".

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Later statements said that two more Palestinians had died in Nablus, while another Palestinian was also killed in overnight clashes near Ramallah.

An injured man is carried in a stretcher to a hospital after clashes with Israeli forces in Nablus on Tuesday. AFP

The Israeli army said it had carried out a vast operation with police and intelligence officers targeting a site "used by the main operatives of the 'Lion's Den'", describing it as a "headquarters and a workshop for making weapons.”

Violence has increased in recent months in the northern West Bank, the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 by Israel, especially in the areas of Nablus and Jenin.

A view shows the house of Palestinian group Lions’ Den member Wadee Al Houh in Nablus on Tuesday. Reuters

More than 100 Palestinian fighters and civilians have been killed since the start of the year, the heaviest toll in the West Bank for nearly seven years, according to the United Nations.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is establishing "urgent contacts in order to stop this aggression against our people" in Nablus, his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeinah said in a statement.

Agence France-Presse