JERUSALEM: An overnight Israeli army raid killed three Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to Palestinian sources.

In a statement Monday, the Palestinian health ministry identified the three men killed in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus as Muhammad Abu Zaytoun (32), Fathi Abu Rizk (30) and Abdullah Abu Hamdan (24).

The Israeli army did not immediately comment when contacted by AFP.

Two Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in West Bank, Palestinians say

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, said in a statement that the three were among the group’s “fighters”.

Witnesses told AFP that Israeli forces raided several houses in the camp overnight in search of people wanted by the army.

Gunfire and loud explosions rocked the camp, the witnesses said, adding that a house was demolished.

The occupied West Bank has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War.

Nearly three million Palestinians live there, along with about 490,000 Israelis in settlements considered to be illegal under international law.

The latest deaths come just over a week into a fragile Gaza ceasefire after a five day cross-border conflict between Israel and the Islamic Jihad group.

Israeli forces kill two Palestinians in West Bank gunfight, medics says

Since the start of the year, at least 153 Palestinians, 20 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian have been killed in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources from both sides.