Israel sends tanks into Nablus

After vowing harsh retaliation against Hamas, Israel sent columns of tanks deep into the heart of Palestinian-ruled Nablus, which had been surrounded and under curfew for weeks.

Troops exchanged fire with gunmen as they assaulted their main target, the Casbah where militants holed up and fought fiercely during a month-long Israeli offensive in the West Bank last spring.

‘‘Our objective is to eliminate the local terror network, especially bomb factories there,’’ a senior Israeli officer said as the raid began.

Soldiers moved from house to house by smashing inner walls, as they searched for militants.

In Hebron, the Army blew up the home of a Palestinian gunman who killed two Israelis in Jerusalem last November before he was shot dead. Relatives of the militant said 50 people were made homeless.

An Israeli general signed orders late on Thursday for the deportation from the West Bank to the fenced-in Gaza Strip of two brothers of wanted militants.

Palestinian security and medical sources said troops killed a Hamas member in his home in a village on the outskirts of Nablus and shot dead two other Palestinians in the Casbah area. The senior Israeli commander said he estimated that several dozen armed militants — ‘‘a new generation of terrorists’’ — operated out of the Casbah. He said it would take several days to flush them out.

Israeli forces seized control of Nablus and most other West Bank cities and towns following a spate of suicide bombings in Jerusalem in mid-June. Half a dozen tanks thrust into Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip on Friday, and a Palestinian man was killed by Israeli gunfire, Palestinian security sources said. (Reuters)