Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian, wound several in West Bank raid

Mahmoud Jarad, 23, was shot in the chest as Israeli soldiers raided the Tulkarem refugee camp, in the northern occupied West Bank on Friday. Israeli soldiers reportedly fired live ammunition and tear gas canisters, and stationed snipers on the rooftops of the camp’s residents.

Jarad was taken to Thabet Thabet Hospital, and was pronounced dead.

Amin Khader, the director of the hospital, told Palestine TV that at least eight people were wounded.

The Fatah party, which dominates the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, said Jarad was a member but it did not claim him as a fighter.

For its part, the Tulkarem Brigade which is affiliated with the armed military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, said in a press release that it “responded to the Israeli incursion into the Tulkarem camp, with armed clashes and improvised explosive devices”.

There was no immediate comment from the Palestinian health ministry or the Israeli military.

On Thursday, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian fighter who was wanted by the army for months during a raid near the city of Nablus.

Violence in the occupied West Bank has worsened over the past 15 months amid stepped-up Israeli raids, rampages by illegal Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages and Palestinian street attacks.

A United Nations tally showed at least 196 Palestinians and 24 people in Israel have been killed in hostilities since January. According to Wafa, the number of Palestinians killed this year is at least 220.

Israel subjects millions of Palestinians to military rule in the West Bank, which it occupied during the 1967 War. It has continued to build settlements, considered by most countries as illegal, which it disputes.

United States-brokered peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem collapsed in 2014 and show no sign of resuming.

Some 40,700 Palestinians are registered with the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in two camps in the Tulkarem area. They are Palestinian refugees, or their descendants, who were forced out by Zionist paramilitary groups or fled their homes in the run-up to Israel’s creation in 1948.