Hamas threatens to end truce to avenge killing

The body of a second Palestinian man was found in the rubble of a house destroyed by the army after the raid in the West Bank town of Nablus, an AFP photographer at the scene reported.

Israel also warned the Palestinian Authority (PA) that time was running out for it to crack down on radical groups -- or else its forces would do the job themselves.

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A Hamas spokesman said the killing of one of its followers, named as Khamis Abu Salam, a member of the radical group's armed wing, in a building at Nablus' Askar refugee camp was a "flagrant violation of the truce by the Zionist enemy.

"Hamas will discuss this aggression but we cannot be silent about this violation and aggression," Ismail Abu Shanab told AFP.

Palestinian government officials also expressed fears that the truce announced by militant groups on June 29, and any possible extension, may have been compromised by the killing

"We had a lot of meetings last week and we reached a very positive position from factions," culture minister Ziad Abu Amr told AFP.

"But I see the Israeli army are trying to prevent us from reaching any positive agreement with the factions."

The truce came attached with a raft of conditions, including "an immediate halt to all types of Zionist aggressions".

Violence has drastically diminished in the past few weeks but Israel says the truce is unilateral and that the Jewish state is not bound by its terms.

The AFP photographer near Askar camp reported seeing a first dead body covered by a blanket near the building where the militants and Israeli troops had been engaged in violent clashes.

The army had dynamited and destroyed the building, apparently leading to both deaths. After the operation, troops placed the area under curfew and barred access to ambulances.

Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes bombed the fringes of villages in south Lebanon on Friday after Hezbollah militiamen attacked Israeli army posts in the disputed Shebaa Farms border region, said Lebanese police.

Fighter bombers swooped four times to fire missiles at targets on the outskirts of Kfarshuba, Hebbariyeh, Slamiyeh and Kfarhamam near the Shebaa Farms, they said.

At the same time, militiamen of the Shiite fundamentalist movement Hezbollah traded artillery fire with Israeli troops.

The guerrilla attack, the first in the Shebaa Farms for seven months, followed a car-bomb explosion which killed a Hezbollah member in southern Beirut on August 2 that the group blamed on Israel.