Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian, injure 4 in West Bank

The Palestinian Health Ministry said a person was shot dead before dawn on Thursday, as Palestinian fighters said they were confronting Israeli forces and settlers in the Nablus area, Reuters news agency reported.

At least four Palestinians sustained gunshot wounds and two were in serious condition, the Palestinian Red Crescent said in what it described as clashes with Israeli forces in the eastern part of Nablus, a northern occupied West Bank city that has been a traditional centre of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation.

The Nablus battalion of the al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad group, announced its members were “fighting the occupation forces and groups of settlers who had stormed the area of Joseph’s Tomb,” referring to a shrine in the city that has seen repeated clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces.

Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest killing of a Palestinian, which follows the raid by Israeli troops earlier this month on the Jenin refugee camp – located about 41km (25 miles) away – that killed 12 Palestinians, injured approximately 100 others, caused thousands to flee, and inflicted widespread destruction on civilian infrastructure.

One Israeli soldier was killed during the raid on Jenin.

In February, Israeli forces killed 11 Palestinians and injured more than 80 people – some of them critically – during a raid on Nablus involving 150 troops and dozens of armoured vehicles. The raid followed less than a month after 10 Palestinians were killed in a similar raid in the Jenin refugee camp.

Violence in the West Bank has worsened over the past 15 months, with increased Israeli raids, settler rampages in Palestinian villages, and street attacks by Palestinians.