Israeli forces kill four Palestinians in West Bank arrest raid

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Monday, Palestinian officials said, and Israel's border police said they had opened fire at a vehicle that tried to run them over during an arrest raid.

Israel's border police said in a statement that forces had arrived at building to arrest suspects from an attempted attack earlier in the day. As they closed in, the statement said, four suspects tried to escape in a vehicle by running over security officers. The officers opened fire and killed them.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said Israeli forces opened fire at a vehicle near a village outside the city of Ramallah. It reported that Israeli forces later entered the village and eight people were injured during clashes.

Violence in the West Bank, already on the rise before the war in Gaza, has escalated further, with stepped-up Israeli military raids, settler violence and Palestinian street attacks.

(Reporting by Ali Sawafta, additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Josie Kao)