NABLUS, West Bank, May 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Eight Palestinians, two Israeli soldiers were wounded, and another Israeli soldier was killed late Friday, May 24, when Israeli troops invaded the northern West Bank town of Tulkarem and its refugee camp, according to sources from both sides.

Palestinian medical sources said fighting broke out when the occupation troops, backed by about 10 tanks, tried to abducted Palestinian resistance activists. Two of the eight wounded Palestinians were reported to be in serious condition, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Palestinian hospital officials, who reported that the Israelis were firing tank shells, said eight civilians, including a four-year-old girl, were wounded.

For its part, the Israeli army said three of its soldiers were wounded at the entrance to the refugee camp, one of them critically. Palestinian witnesses in the camp said they saw wounded soldiers being evacuated by the army.

Meanwhile, an Israeli soldier, one of the three wounded, was dead during the Israeli incursion into Tulkarem, an Israeli military spokesman said.

"Platoon Sergeant Oren Tselnik, 23, from the reserve corps was killed and two other soldiers were injured, one of them seriously," during an exchange of fire with Palestinian gunmen, the army spokesman said.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Fatah movement, claimed the attack on the soldiers in a statement to AFP. It said it had seized soldiers' weapons during the clash.  

The group, also claimed an abortive martyr attack on a Tel Aviv night club on Thursday night, said it was retaliating for the recent killing of one of its commanders in the West Bank.

In its statement, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said it ambushed the Israeli troops in retaliation for the recent killing of Mahmoud Titi, its commander in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus, and two others, reported BBC’s online news service. 

Palestinian security sources said the tanks fired shells at several targets, but could not say what had been hit, and that helicopters were firing at the camp with heavy machine guns. The Israeli army imposed a curfew on the town, the sources added.

Also, the Palestinian news agency Wafa said that Israeli troops rounded up a number of people in the refugee camp on Friday evening and taken them to a military post.

It was the second raid this week on the Palestinian-controlled town, which is viewed by Israel as a hotbed of terrorism (Israeli term for Palestinian resistance).

Tulkarem lies on the border between the West Bank and Israel and is often used as a hub for martyr attacks inside the Jewish state.

It has been the target of several Israeli aggressions this month and was seized for a week during Israel's April invasion of the West Bank.