JERUSALEM: Israeli forces killed three Palestinian fighters Monday in a raid on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank in what the army described as an operation targeting “terrorist” suspects.

In a statement, the Palestinian health ministry identified the three men killed in Balata camp in Nablus as Muhammad Abu Zaytoun, 32, Fathi Abu Rizk, 30, and Abdullah Abu Hamdan, 24.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party, said in a statement that the three were among the group’s “fighters”.

The group’s emblem was wrapped around the foreheads of the men in a morgue, and their bodies shrouded in the Palestinian flag.

The Israeli army said it had shot several fighters when a gun battle erupted during a “counterterrorism” operation.

During the operation, “armed suspects fired at the soldiers, who responded with live fire. Hits were identified,” it said.