NABLUS, West Bank, Aug 22 (AFP) - Ten Palestinians were injured, one seriously, on Sunday when Israeli troops fired towards a group of stonethrowers during an incursion into the northern West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian medical sources said.
Three of the injured were hit by live bullets and one of them was in a serious condition. The other seven were slightly injured by rubber bullets, the sources said.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said troops in Nablus had uncovered an explosives laboratory which contained an explosive belt, a bag containing 10 kilogrammes of explosives and several mortar shells.
She said it was the eighth time troops had discovered an explosive laboratory in Nablus in the space of a week.
In Nablus' old city, also known as the Casbah, around 100 demonstrators held a protest against an ongoing army incursion into the area, Palestinian security sources said.
Some 30 of the protestors were foreign peace activists allied with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM), they said.
Troops fired sound bombs to disperse the crowd, but there were no reports of anyone being injured.
The army has been operating in Nablus for over a week.
Meanwhile, the ISM said that three of its international members, who were arrested a day earlier in Nablus' Balata refugee camp, had been released and allowed to stay in the country on condition they agreed not to enter any area defined as a "closed military zone".
Troops detained the three -- a German, an Austrian and a Briton -- late Saturday as they tried to visit a Palestinian family whose house had been occupied by the soldiers for a week, a spokeswoman said.