Israeli forces Sunday ended their deadliest raid in the West Bank for months after killing the West Bank commander of a militant group within Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction. 

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei, also of Fatah, said Israel committed a brutal and ugly crime in Nablus, a militant stronghold. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the operation another impressive achievement against terrorism.

Uncovering a hideout in a Nablus house on Saturday, soldiers killed Nayef Abu Sharkh, head of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank, and five other gunmen, including local commanders of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad militant groups.

The brigades, whose militants have carried out dozens of suicide bombings and attacks against Israelis in a Palestinian uprising that began in 2000, promised unprecedented retaliation -- "like an earthquake," they said in a statement.

Israeli military sources said yesterday the raid, codenamed "Full Court Press" and launched on Wednesday by paratroopers in Nablus's casbah, a warren of ancient streets, was over.

Residents said soldiers pulled out of the neighborhood and took up positions on hilltops as thousands of Palestinians gathered in the city center for the militants' funerals.

The army commander who led the ambush on the gunmen's hideout said Israel carried out the operation after preventing a bombing in Jerusalem last week planned by militants.

(China Daily June 28, 2004)