During an Israeli army raid carried out early Thursday morning on the Balata refugee camp in the northern West Bank city, two Palestinian gunmen were killed in a fire exchange in Nablus according to the local hospital officials.

Several other Palestinians were killed in the Israeli air strikes.

The sound of gun fire broke the silence of the early morning as the Israeli troops entered the refugee camp on a “search and arrest raid”. Besides the two above mentioned gunmen, the Israeli soldiers also wounded a third Palestinian gunman and took him in for questioning.

The gunmen killed in the raid were identified as members of al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the military wing of President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement. With these latest casualties, the death toll of the last 24 hours climbed to 17 Palestinians.

Reports show there were other casualties. Another militant dies as the explosive device he was handling detonated prematurely.

An Israeli civilian was reportedly killed Wednesday in a heavy rocket barrage on the Israeli town of Sderot, two kilometers east of the Gaza Strip. After this fatality, Israel warned the Palestinian they would retaliate.

The Israeli military said it has launched new air strikes against Palestinian militants who fire rockets into Israel, but the Palestinians said there were no injuries.

The fresh air strikes were initiated by Israel Wednesday. The targets were the militants, workshops and buildings belonging to the Hamas organization, which administers the Strip.

However, the casualties of the Israeli air strikes included four children, among them a six-month-old infant, and militants belonging to Hamas, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Islamic Jihad, said Mo'aweya Hassanein, head of emergency services at the Hamas-run Gaza ministry of health.

Hamas condemning the air strikes as "the barbarian Israeli war on Palestinians," called on President Mahmoud Abbas and the Arab world to take prompt action.

"President Abbas should decide whether he supports this war against his people or he condemns it. The Arab and Islamic worlds should also move to prevent the Israeli aggression," said the Hamas Interior Ministry in a statement.