Palestinian killed in West Bank during Israeli arrest raid

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The Israeli army killed a 21-year-old Palestinian militant on Wednesday during an arrest raid in the West Bank, Palestinian health officials said, the latest deadly confrontation as violence continues to surge in the occupied territory.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said that Ahmed Abu Junaid died several hours after he was struck in the head by a bullet during an Israeli incursion into the hardscrabble Balata refugee camp in the city of Nablus, in the northern West Bank.

The Israeli army reported several arrest raids across the West Bank early Wednesday. In the Balata refugee camp, a gunfight erupted between Palestinian militants and Israeli security forces, the army said, acknowledging that a Palestinian was hit.

Palestinian health officials said that Israeli special forces surrounded a house in the congested camp during the arrest operation and unleashed live fire, tear gas and stun grenades at a crowd of young men.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade — an armed militia affiliated with Fatah, the secular political party that controls the Palestinian Authority — claimed Abu Junaid as a fighter. Pictures of him brandishing a rifle were shared widely on social media. His death brings the toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire so far in 2023 to five.

Israeli military raids have surged in the West Bank since last March, when the army began an operation to curb a wave of Palestinian attacks within Israel last spring that killed 19 Israelis. At least 146 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces in 2022 in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, according to Israeli human-rights group B’Tselem. Last year’s death toll was the highest since 2004, during a wave of intense violence known as the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising.

The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

Israel says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks. The Palestinians see them as further entrenchment of Israel’s 55-year, open-ended occupation of the West Bank.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war and the Palestinians seek those territories for a future state.

Palestinian killed in West Bank during Israeli arrest raid

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