RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – The Palestinian Health Ministry said a person was shot dead by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus before dawn on Thursday, as Palestinian fighters said they were confronting Israeli soldiers and settlers in the area.
At least four Palestinians sustained gunshot wounds and two were in serious condition, said the Palestinian Red Crescent in what it described as clashes with Israeli forces in the eastern part of Nablus, a northern 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, said 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.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Violence in the West Bank has worsened over the past 15 months, with increased Israeli raids, Palestinian street attacks and settler rampages in Palestinian villages.
The Palestinians want to establish an independent state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, territories Israel occupied in a 1967 Middle East war.
U.S.-sponsored statehood talks collapsed in 2014 and show no sign of revival while Israel has maintained military rule over millions of Palestinians and expanded West Bank settlements, which most countries deem as illegal.
(Reporting by Ali Sawafta; Additional reporting by Henriette Chacar; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Diane Craft)
