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Nablus: Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Nablus on Tuesday, Palestinian security sources and medical workers said.
The killings could test a truce which took effect last week between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. Though the truce applies only to Gaza, attacks on militants in the West Bank could trigger retaliation.
An Israeli army spokesman said troops killed a senior member of the Islamic Jihad militant group. He said he could not immediately confirm a second death.
Palestinian security sources and medical workers said one of the dead Palestinians was a member of Islamic Jihad and that the other was affiliated with Hamas.
Islamic Jihad vowed revenge.
"The reprisal for this noble blood will be in the depths of the Zionist entity, God willing," Islamic Jihad said in a statement from the West Bank.
In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum accused Israel of trying to sabotage the truce.
"The resistance factions in the West Bank have the full right to respond to this crime," Barhoum said.
Nablus's governor Jamal Muheisen called the Israeli raid in the city an "unjustified crime" but said he did not believe it would threaten the Gaza truce.
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