Six Palestinians killed in West Bank, Gaza attacks

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Street scenes in Nablus

Israeli troops have killed six Palestinians - three in the Gaza Strip and three in the West Bank.

The Israeli military said three Palestinians suspected of trying to infiltrate from Gaza were killed in an air strike near the Erez crossing.

It is the largest number of deaths in a day since the Gaza conflict a year ago.

Separately, Israeli forces said they had killed three men - who were suspected of killing a Jewish settler - in the West Bank city of Nablus.

Palestinian sources in Nablus say two of those killed were militants from the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the militant faction of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party.

The faction was one of two groups which said they had killed the settler, a father of seven, two days ago - the first fatal shooting of an Israeli by militants in the occupied West Bank for eight months.

Eyewitnesses said the Israeli raid began in the early hours of the morning and lasted for several hours.

They said there had not been a raid like this in Nablus for about a year and a half, the BBC's Bethany Bell reports from Jerusalem.

The violence came a day before the first anniversary of the Gaza war that killed some 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis.