JERUSALEM (AFP) - Two Palestinians were killed near the Israeli settlement of Neve Dekalim in the Gaza Strip in a clash with Israeli troops, an Israeli military spokesman said.
And a 13-year-old Palestinian boy was killed in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, when Israeli forces opened fire on stone-throwing protestors, Palestinian security and hospital sources said.
Israeli army sources in Jerusalem had initially said three Palestinians were killed in the firefight in the Gaza Strip, but later revised the toll down to two.
"Two Palestinians, and not three, were killed this morning by Israeli forces in a clash near Neve Dekalim. We combed the sector and discovered their bodies, their weapons and an explosive device that they wanted to plant," the spokesman told AFP.
One Israeli soldier was slightly wounded in the firefight and evacuated from the scene, the source added.
In a telephone call to AFP, the radical Islamic Jihad movement claimed responsibility for an assault on Neve Dekalim, part of the Gush Katif settlement bloc in southern Gaza.
The group said two of its members -- Omar Nufal, 26, and Ramzi al-Jaabir, 29 -- had been killed, while the fate of a third was unknown.
Israeli military sources and witnesses said Israeli forces had launched a helicopter-launched missile at Palestinian gunmen engaged in a firefight with Israeli troops protecting the settlement.
The three had been spotted "carrying what was suspected to be an explosive device" as they approached an unauthorized zone near Gush Katif at daybreak, an Israeli military source said.
Israel is due to withdraw from all 21 Gaza settlements next year as part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's controversial disengagement plan.
The deaths on Saturday brought the number of people killed since the beginning of the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in September 2000 to 4,559, including 3,525 Palestinians and 960 Israelis.
Israeli military sources also said the army had arrested eight Palestinian militants overnight in the West Bank and seized an arms cache in the area near Hebron.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, about a dozen Israeli army jeeps entered the town of Jericho and searched several houses looking for wanted militants, arresting one Palestinian policeman, Palestinian security sources said.
11/06/2004 - 13:56 GMT - AFP