An Israeli military raid near the city of Jericho in the occupied West Bank on Monday killed at least five Palestinians during a gunfight that the Israeli Army said began after soldiers sought to arrest gunmen accused of attempting a recent attack at a nearby Israeli settlement.

The deaths near Jericho brought the number of Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank since the start of the year to more than 40, most of them during gun battles that broke out during Israeli operations to arrest members of armed Palestinian groups.

That toll constitutes the deadliest start to a year for Palestinians in the West Bank in the past decade and a half, drawing comparisons with the violence of the early years of this century, when a Palestinian uprising, known as the second intifada, left roughly 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis dead.