Ramallah, Jul 3 (IANS): Four Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Nour Shams refugee camp in the city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.

Palestinian security sources told Xinhua news agency that an Israeli reconnaissance aircraft on Tuesday targeted a group of young men in the main square of Nur Shams refugee camp with a missile.

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry said in a press statement sent to Xinhua that the airstrike killed four young men.

The Israeli army confirmed in a statement that it carried out the attack in the Nur Shams camp, claiming it targeted a "cell while it was placing an explosive device."

Mustafa Taqataqa, the Tulkarm Governor, condemned what he described as the "escalation of aggression and ongoing Israeli crimes against citizens in Tulkarm and the West Bank."

The incident follows the killing of a Palestinian and the wounding of five others in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Nur Shams camp on Sunday, according to Palestinian and Israeli sources.

More than 550 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the eruption of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip last October, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.