ISRAELI occupation forces demolished today the West Bank home of a Palestinian suspected of killing an Israeli soldier last year.

This latest act of collective punishment by the Israeli military took place during a week of rising tensions and unrelenting violence in the West Bank and just hours after an Israeli air strike had killed three Palestinian resistance fighters near the city of Jenin.

The latest flare-up began on Monday, when an all-day Israeli military raid killed seven Palestinians, including two teenagers, near Jenin.

The following day, Palestinian fighters killed four Israelis, including a 17-year-old boy.

Hundreds of Israeli settlers responded on Wednesday by storming into a Palestinian village adjacent to the scene of the shooting and torching homes and cars.

Late that evening, the Israeli army said it had “identified a terrorist cell inside a suspicious vehicle” that was allegedly responsible for recent gun attacks on Israeli settlements. 

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance group said today that the three men killed in air strike, carried out by a drone, were its members and vowed to carry out more attacks to avenge their deaths.

The air strike was the first in the West Bank in nearly two decades and marked a significant escalation of Israel’s more than year-long crackdown on Palestinian militants in the occupied territory.

Early today, the Israeli army released a video showing troops carrying out the controlled demolition of the suspected gunman's flat. 

The military reported that troops had come under attack during the operation in the city of Nablus, but no injuries were reported.

The demolished house belonged to Kamal Jouri, one of two Palestinians suspected of killing Staff Sergeant Ido Baruch in a drive-by shooting in the northern West Bank last October. 

He and a second suspect were arrested by the military in February and the army demolished the second suspect's home earlier this month. 

A Palestinian resistance group called the Den of Lions claimed responsibility for the attack.

Israel says that demolishing the homes of Palestinian fighters serves as a deterrent, but critics point out that the tactic amounts to collective punishment.

At least 135 Palestinians and 26 people on the Israeli side have been killed so far this year.

Israel’s forces been staging near-nightly raids in the occupied West Bank.

The Israeli authorities insist that most of the Palestinians killed so far this year were violently resisting military operations, but others not involved in confrontations, including many children, have also been killed by the occupation forces.