Israel kills local Islamic Jihad chief - source

NABLUS, West Bank, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Israeli troops killed a local commander of Islamic Jihad in the West Bank town of Nablus on Tuesday, a Palestinian security source said, a day after Israel killed two other militants in an air strike in Gaza.

The Israeli army said two soldiers were wounded in a gunbattle in Nablus where troops had surrounded a building to force a wanted gunman inside to surrender. The army could not say whether the militant had been killed.

A Palestinian security source said the troops had killed a local commander of Islamic Jihad, a group bent on Israel's destruction and also responsible for a series of recent suicide bombings in Israel. The Israeli raid was the latest in a spiral of escalating violence.

Hours earlier, Israel killed two militants of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, in an air strike in Gaza on Monday.

A day earlier, Israel killed five other Palestinian militants, including a top Islamic Jihad bombmaker, in two separate air raids in Gaza. Also on Sunday, an Israeli woman was killed in a stabbing attack in central Israel.