Israeli drone kills two Palestinian gunmen in West Bank, military says
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - An Israeli drone killed two Palestinian gunmen in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, the Israeli military said.
The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed two men had been killed in the Balata area, on the outskirts of the Palestinian city of Nablus in the northern West Bank. A woman and 12-year-old girl were also lightly wounded, the ministry said.
Violence in the West Bank has escalated since the war in Gaza between Israel and Palestinian armed group Hamas broke out last October, with more Israeli raids, Jewish settler violence and Palestinian street attacks.
Israeli forces have killed at least 620 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem - areas the Palestinians envisage as part of their own eventual state - since the start of the Gaza war, according to Palestinian Health Ministry figures.
Some have been armed fighters but others have been stone-throwing youths or uninvolved civilians. At least 30 Israelis - civilians and soldiers - have been killed by Palestinians in Jerusalem and the West Bank in the same period.
(Reporting by Ali Swafta in Ramallah and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
