Israeli troops killed 15 Palestinians in clashes in Gaza and the occupied West Bank on Wednesday in one of the worst days of violence since Israel launched an offensive to free an abducted soldier. Fighting erupted between Israeli troops and militants in central Gaza after the army pushed into the strip, killing 10 Palestinians -- five militants and five civilians -- in air strikes and other attacks, medics said. Some of the heaviest fighting took place around the Maghazi refugee camp. Four of the dead militants were from the governing Islamist Hamas movement. Gunmen from the faction, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, and two other groups captured Israeli army Corporal Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid on June 25. Israel has killed about 110 Palestinians, around half of them militants, in Gaza since the abduction and vowed to continue its three-week offensive until the soldier is freed and gunmen stop firing rockets into Israel. It has refused Hamas demands that it free Palestinian prisoners in return for Shalit, a 19-year-old tank gunner.
In the West Bank, Israeli troops backed by armored vehicles surrounded a Palestinian security compound in the city of Nablus and killed three gunmen from moderate President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, medics said. Two civilians were also killed, medics said. The army said troops had confronted civilians who had thrown stones at them as well as gunmen, but that soldiers had only fired at Palestinians who shot at them.