Israeli troops kill Hamas gunman in West Bank clash

QALQILYA, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops shot dead an armed Palestinian man in a clash in the occupied West Bank on Friday, Palestinian medics and the Israeli army said.

A spokesman for the Islamist Hamas armed wing identified the dead man as Mahmoud Assi, a Hamas gunman. The spokesman said he was killed in a clash with Israeli forces near the town of Qalqilya in the central West Bank.

An army spokesman said the gunman was shot dead before dawn on Friday by troops who were combing an area from where shots were fired at an Israeli car, wounding its driver. He added that a soldier was also lightly hurt in the clash.

A Hamas armed wing statement called the 45-year-old Assi a "hero leader" and vowed revenge for his killing, the second of a Palestinian by Israel in the West Bank this week.

The violence could further disrupt a shaky ceasefire between Israel and Hamas-led militant groups in the Gaza Strip.

The Egyptian-brokered truce, which began on June 19, applies to Gaza only but some militants there have retaliated with rocket attacks for previous Israeli actions in the West Bank.

On Thursday, Israeli troops shot dead an unarmed member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades as he tried to cross a border fence from Gaza into Israel. It was the first fatality along the Israel-Gaza border since the start of the ceasefire.

Hamas arrested seven men who fired rockets into Israel from Gaza, in the first such detentions since the truce began.

(Reporting by Naim Sweilem in Qalqilya and Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah, Writing by Ori Lewis)