NABLUS, Nov 6: Two senior Palestinian fighters were blown up in their car in the West Bank late on Tuesday in an attack labelled an Israeli assassination by a leader of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.

The explosion in the Jenin refugee camp came just hours after an Israeli army officer and three Palestinians were killed in a pitched gunbattle near Nablus, around 25 kilometres to the south.

The two men killed in the blast were identified by a Jenin Fatah leader as Majdi Jaradat, 32, and Ikrima Istiti, 35.

He said they were leaders of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, which has claimed several anti-Israeli attacks.

Last month, a similar car blast killed a Fatah leader wanted by Israel in Bethlehem.

The latest blast ripped the car apart hours after Israeli troops intercepted three Palestinians heading out of the autonomous Palestinian village of Tell, south of Nablus, and into an area where Israel is in charge of security.

The Israeli patrol killed two of the men immediately, but their officer was fatally wounded and could not be evacuated in the ensuing hour-long gunbattle.

The Palestinians were identified by hospital officials in Nablus as Iyad Khatib, 28, of the hardline Hamas, Fatah member Jamal Abu Maluh, 22, and Ali Abu Hijleh, 22, of the communist People’s Party.

The flare-up came as Israel’s dovish Foreign Minister Shimon Peres confirmed he and right-wing Sharon were trying to work out a peace plan.—AFP