RAMALLAH, West Financial institution (AP) — Israeli forces working in a refugee camp within the occupied West Financial institution shot and killed a Palestinian man on Monday, a Palestinian official stated, the newest bloodshed in a yearlong wave of violence that has gripped the area.
The governor of Jericho, Jihad Abu al-Asal, instructed Palestinian media that the person, Suleiman Ayesh, was fatally shot within the Aqabat Jaber refugee camp within the central West Financial institution, which has repeatedly been the scene of preventing between Israeli troops and Palestinians in latest months.
Abu al-Asal didn’t disclose the person’s age and there was no speedy remark from the Palestinian Well being Ministry.
The Israeli navy stated it was working within the space when two suspects had been noticed fleeing. Troopers opened fireplace and struck no less than one of many suspects.
The violence comes as Israel is about to mark its Memorial Day for fallen troopers and victims of militant assaults, starting at sunset on Monday, adopted by its seventy fifth Independence Day the next night. Beginning Monday afternoon, Israel is about to shut off the West Financial institution and the Gaza Strip to all Palestinians wishing to go away apart from humanitarian circumstances, a closure that’s anticipated to proceed till late Wednesday. Israel commonly tightens its motion restrictions out of the West Financial institution and Gaza throughout holidays in what it says is a safety precaution.
Violence between Israel and the Palestinians has spiked over the past yr, after a bout of Palestinian assaults prompted Israel to launch near-nightly arrest raids into West Financial institution cities, villages and cities.
Israel says its raids are important to dismantle militant networks and thwart future assaults, however violence has proven no signal of abating. The Palestinians say the raids entrench Israel’s 56-year, open-ended occupation of lands they look for a future unbiased state.
Bloodshed has solely intensified for the reason that begin of this yr. Up to now this yr, 95 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fireplace within the West Financial institution, in line with a tally by The Related Press, no less than half of them affiliated with militant teams. Throughout that point, 19 folks had been killed in Palestinian assaults on Israelis.
Tensions have been significantly excessive over the past month, as Muslims marked the holy month of Ramadan, which this yr coincided with the Jewish vacation of Passover. Earlier this month, an Israeli police raid on Muslim worshippers at a delicate Jerusalem holy website touched off rocket salvos from militants in Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and Syria, which Israel responded to with air strikes.
Additionally earlier this month, Palestinian gunmen killed three British-Israeli ladies — a mom and two of her daughters — as they had been driving of their automotive within the West Financial institution. In a separate incident, an Italian vacationer was killed and 5 others had been wounded when a Palestinian-Israeli’s automotive careened onto a motorbike path close to the seashore in Tel Aviv in what authorities described as a suspected assault.