Father, son killed in West Bank firefight

NABLUS, West Bank -- For two hours, Khaled Sallah and his family huddled on the floor of their apartment yesterday morning as the army poured machine gun fire into the building and helicopter gunships pounded the roof with rockets, trading fire with a fugitive gunman.

But as Sallah, 50, tried to negotiate an exit from the building, a single bullet hit him in the neck, relatives said. When his 16-year-old son, Mohammed, tried to rescue him, a bullet struck the teen in the mouth and killed him.

Sallah, an American-educated computer science professor, and his son were killed during a raid by Israeli commandos in the Ein Beit Ilma refugee camp in the West Bank city of Nablus. An Israeli officer and two Palestinian gunmen also were killed.

Major Sharon Feingold, an Israeli army spokeswoman, said the military regretted the deaths of the two civilians yesterday. ''But any time the terrorists use civilians as cover these things happen," she said. The two militants killed in the fighting, local leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a violent faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization, had been behind a string of attacks, Feingold added.

In the initial exchange of fire, the Israeli officer and a gunman were killed, Feingold said. The second fugitive fled into the building where the Sallahs live.

Feingold said the army believed Sallah and his son had been hit by shrapnel.

Sallah received his doctorate from University of California at Berkeley and had taught computer science at A-Najah University since 1978, a relative said.