With violence escalating following a series of deadly Arab attacks in Israel, a Palestinian was killed by Israeli soldiers during what locals said were clashes with police in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The Israeli military says troops have shot dead a Palestinian man throwing petrol bombs at an Israeli vehicle. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register The bloodshed coincided with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when Israeli-Palestinian violence erupted in the past and, last May, escalated into an 11-day war between Gaza and Israeli fighters. In Bethlehem, no weapons were found in the body of a Palestinian who was shot and killed after ignoring calls from soldiers and warning shots to stop running towards them, the Israeli army said, adding that an investigation had been launched. People carry the body of Palestinian woman Ghada Sabatin, who according to doctors was killed by Israeli forces during her funeral in Husan in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on April 10, 2022. REUTERS / Mussa Qawasma read more Hours later, a Palestinian armed with a knife was shot and killed after slightly injuring a paramilitary border policeman in Hebron, outside the Patriarchs’ Tomb, which Muslims call al-Ibrahimi Mosque, Israeli security officials said. Israeli forces are on high alert after attacks by three members of Israel’s Arab minority and two Palestinians from the West Bank that have killed 14 people in Israel since late March. More than 20 Palestinians, many of them militants, have been killed by Israeli forces since January, and Palestinians have reported an increase in violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Hussein al-Sheikh, a senior Palestinian official, said the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories wanted the Palestinians to gain statehood and that visits by far-right Israelis to the Al-Aqsa mosque complex in Jerusalem had led to a coup. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the Arab attackers were “trying to destroy us” and “moved by hatred of the Jews and the state of Israel.” Israeli forces have raided in and around the West Bank city of Jenin, a stronghold of fighters, to try to thwart what Bennett called a “new wave of terrorism.” Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report by Jeffrey Heller and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza. Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Alex Richardson Our role models: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
