Palestinian shot dead in Israeli West Bank raid

JERICHO, Palestinian on Territories — A Palestinian was killed on Tuesday when Israeli forces stormed a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

The deadly shooting was the latest in wave of bloodshed in the West Bank and Israel as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the Jewish holiday of Passover overlapped this month.

The Palestinian health ministry said 20-year-old Ahmed Ibrahim Oweidat "succumbed to critical wounds sustained by live bullets to the head, at dawn today in Aqabat Jaber camp" near Jericho.

Two other men were wounded by live fire when the “undercover” forces raided the camp overnight, said the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Israel’s occupation forces said in a statement to AFP that soldiers had conducted an overnight operation in Aqabat “to apprehend wanted suspects”.

“During the operational activity, dozens of Palestinians violently rioted and attacked the soldiers,” it said, adding that no Israeli troops were hurt. 

“The rioters burned tyres and hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at the soldiers. The soldiers responded with riot dispersal means and live ammunition.”

 Mounting death toll 

Confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinians are common in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967, but recent weeks have seen a surge in unrest. 

Attacks by Palestinians and Israeli Arabs have killed 14 people since late March, while Oweidat is the 25th Palestinian, including assailants, killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank over the same period.

His body, wrapped in the Palestinian flag and that of the president Mahmoud Abbas’ Fateh movement, was driven from a Ramallah hospital to Jericho for his burial, where hundreds of mourners enduring 38ºC heat surrounded the Oweidat family home.

Violent confrontations have also recently rocked the compound of the Al Aqsa Mosque in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem, sparking fears of another armed conflict after an 11-day war last year between Israel and armed forces in Gaza, triggered by similar unrest.

Following Al Aqsa confrontations, isolated rocket fire from Gaza towards Israel resumed, prompting Israeli reprisals on targets linked to the Hamas Islamist who rule the enclave. No injuries have been reported on either side. 

Gaza workers 

Israel on Saturday had closed the Erez crossing with Gaza in retaliation for the rocket fire, blocking the 12,000 Palestinians with permits to enter Israel from going to work.

But Erez reopened Monday “following a security assessment”, the defence ministry said, warning that a sustained opening was conditioned on “the continued preservation of a stable security situation”.

No rockets have been fired from Gaza since Saturday morning.

Concerns of fresh Al Aqsa confrontations are building, though, ahead of Friday prayers at the compound, with the end of Ramadan also approaching in early May. 

Palestinian Muslims have been angered by an uptick in Jewish visits to Al Aqsa Compound, Islam’s third-holiest site. It is also Judaism’s holiest place and known to Jews as the Temple Mount.