Abu al-Haija said a Palestinian woman, Ilham Dosuki, blew herself up early yesterday when soldiers approached the door to her home in the camp, also killing or injuring some of the soldiers. Separately, he said Israeli tank fire killed three Palestinian policemen overnight in a camp alley.
Camp residents, including Abu al-Haija, were confined to their homes by the fighting outside and received information by keeping in touch on mobile telephones. Reports from inside the camps couldn't be verified.
The Israeli military didn't immediately comment on the report about Dosuki blowing herself up, but reported a somewhat similar situation in the area. The army said Israeli troops fired on a Palestinian man early yesterday in Jenin who had explosives strapped to his body, causing a blast that killed only the man.
On Friday, two Israeli soldiers died in Jenin-area fighting and another was seriously wounded, according to the army.
Al-Haija said Israeli forces were surrounding the camp from all sides. With top floors of homes hit hard by missile and tank fire, he said people were confined to lower levels.
Mohammed Abu Ghali, director of a Jenin hospital, said Israeli tanks were not allowing ambulances to evacuate the dead and wounded from the camp.
The Israeli military also said four Palestinians were shot dead early yesterday at the Askar refugee camp near Nablus as they placed explosives along a road to the camp.
Palestinian militants, meanwhile, reported that hours earlier a 22-year-old militant identified as Jamil Arboudi of Nablus blew himself up after charging into a Nablus field occupied by Israeli soldiers. They claimed four Israelis were injured or killed; the Israeli army denied any such attack occurred.
Smoke rose yesterday from the old city of Nablus and sporadic heavy machine-gun fire from Israeli helicopters could be heard. Battles Friday involving Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships against Palestinian gunmen destroyed old city shops and damaged houses in the Balata camp.
In the Gaza Strip, the militant Islamic Jihad group said two of its militants carried out the attack on Rafiah Yam settlement. Israeli officials handed their bodies over to Palestinian authorities.
At Beach refugee camp in Gaza City, residents found the body of a Palestinian identified as Issam Guhra, 37. Guhra, who'd been shot dead, had been arrested by Palestinian police and released several times on accusations of collaborating with Israel. There was no claim of responsibility for his death; police declined comment.
It was not clear whether Israel planned a larger push into Gaza. While most of the top leaders of the Hamas militant group live in the narrow, crowded strip of 1.3 million, the area is effectively surrounded by a fence and it has not been the source of suicide bombers in the current conflict.
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