NABLUS, West Bank, 7 November — Continuing its policy of assassinations, Israeli troops yesterday killed five Palestinians near the West Bank city of Nablus and in Jenin.

An explosion killed two Palestinian activists in a car in Jenin yesterday. A Palestinian security official identified the dead men as Ikrima Isteidi and Majdi Tayyed, both activists in Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction. The official said Isteidi was wanted by Israel.

In Nablus, Israeli troops killed three Palestinians. Ala Badarneh, a local cameraman in Nablus, said he saw bodies of three Palestinians being removed by Israeli troops. At least two others were wounded, medics later confirmed.

Badarneh said the three were killed in an area southwest of Nablus called Wadi Saaden. Nablus residents said Israeli armored vehicles are often in the area and a military outpost sits on a hill overlooking the valley.

Palestinian medical officials said they had received reports that three Palestinians had been killed and they were trying to evacuate the bodies, but were being blocked by Israeli troops. An Israeli Army officer was also killed in what is ßsaid to be a fierce gunbattle between Palestinians and Israeli troops near Nablus.

The fight erupted in Tell, a Palestinian self-rule village on the edge of an area under Israeli military.

In the West Bank, meanwhile, Israeli Army troops completely blocked all northern entrances to the city of Ramallah and fired rubber bullets at anyone trying to cross them, including an AFP correspondent, the reporter said. People were able to enter from other directions only with great difficulty.

The army also blocked off northern and southern access roads in Nablus, to the north of Ramallah, affecting hundreds of people.

The Israeli Army invaded or besieged six towns in the West Bank three weeks ago after the killing of a Cabinet minister on Oct. 17. It has pulled out of Bethlehem and the neighboring town of Beit Jala, as well as Qalqilya, but still has tanks and troops on Palestinian territory around Ramallah, Tulkarem and Jenin.

Tanks have also maintained a tight stranglehold on Nablus from Israeli-controlled territory.

Meanwhile, Israel said yesterday it would begin using "guerrilla" tactics against Palestinian fighters and rely less on large-scale military operations.

"The method of operation is going to change... We will be using when necessary guerrilla warfare against terrorism rather than large-scale forces moving into the area," said Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"We’ll rely more on intelligence," he said. "There will be more... pinpointed operations, small-scale operations, that’s what we call guerrilla warfare-type operations."

Under heavy international pressure, Israel pulled its troops out of Bethlehem and neighboring Beit Jala last week and left Qalqilya on Monday.

Israel has also come under international criticism for what it calls its "targeted killings" of individual Palestinians.

"I believe that the use of the sort of incursions that we used with large forces has exhausted itself," Gissin said.