Israeli troops kill Hamas military commander linked to 107 deaths

Israeli commandos, backed by armoured and engineering units, shot dead Muhaned Taher, the most senior wanted West Bank militant, in a house in Nablus last night. They also killed a second gunman, Imad Darwezeh, and wounded a third.

Taher, 26, who commanded the Hamas military wing in the Hebron area, was accused of being behind the deaths of at least 107 Israelis in a series of attacks. The most recent was the suicide bombing of a Jerusalem bus two weeks ago in which 19 Israelis were killed.

Palestinian sources reported that troops surrounded a flat owned by Amar al-Masri, a member of a leading Nablus family, and ordered everyone to leave. An exchange of fire broke out, in which the two Hamas men died. The wounded man, who was taken into custody, was identified as a son of the house's owner.

Elsewhere on the West Bank yesterday, Israeli troops arrested all male residents of the al-Amri refugee camp near Ramallah who were over 15. Soldiers detained them for questioning in a nearby school.

In another search operation, an Israeli army spokes-man said 27 wanted men were picked up near Ramallah while travelling in Red Crescent ambulances. The Palestinian deputy health minister, Munther al-Sharif, said only medical crews were in them.

Earlier, the Israeli army began evacuating 10 unauthorised Jewish outposts from the West Bank. The first two satellite settlements were in the hills south of Hebron, a third near Ramallah. They were dismantled by agreement with settlers' leaders, some of whom had accused Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, the Israeli Defence Minister, of "encouraging Palestinian terrorism" by ordering their removal.Their evacuation is a token move. Some of the outposts were empty.

In a report published yesterday, the Israeli group Peace Now revealed that 44 new settlements had been established on the West Bank since Mr Sharon and Mr Ben-Eliezer took office 16 months ago.

Inside Israel, police were on high alert after intelligence warnings of a planned suicide attack in Jerusalem. Three Israelis were slightly wounded when a bomb exploded on a railway line south of Tel Aviv during the morning rush hour.

In Hebron, the army stopped searching the rubble of the Palestinian headquarters building, a former British police fort, which sappers blew up on Friday night. Soldiers found no trace of the 15 Palestinian fighters that Israel claimed had taken refuge there.