Palestinian and young man killed by Israeli gunfire in West Bank

JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli settler on Friday shot and killed a Palestinian man who entered a settlement in the occupied West Bank armed with knives and explosive devices, the Israeli military said.

Hours later, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy died after being seriously injured when Israeli soldiers fired at Palestinian stone throwers in the northern West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.

A Palestinian shot and wounded Israelis in downtown Tel Aviv the day before, the latest in a wave of violence that has swept through Israel and the West Bank in one of the deadliest periods of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since years.

According to the Israeli army, the Palestinian gunman broke into a farm near the Karnei Shomron outpost in the northern West Bank and was shot dead by an Israeli settler guarding the farm. Palestinian authorities identified the man as Abed al-Sheikh, 21. His father, Badaie al-Sheikh, said Israeli security forces searched his home, interrogated him and confiscated his son’s mobile phone in the nearby Palestinian village of Saniriya.

The teenager, Amir Ouda, was injured near a checkpoint near the town of Qalqilya, the Palestinian health ministry said. So far, there has been no comment from the Israeli army.

Hours earlier, Israeli forces entered the Palestinian town of Naalin and prepared to demolish the family home of a neighbor suspected of carrying out a shooting in Tel Aviv on Thursday night. The assailant opened fire near Dizengoff Street in a busy downtown area, wounding three Israelis, one seriously.

The Hamas insurgent group said the attacker, a 23-year-old former prisoner named Moataz Khawaja, was part of the organization’s military wing. Furthermore, he said the shooting was a response to an Israeli military raid that on the same day claimed the lives of three Palestinians in the northern town of Khaba, in addition to another raid earlier this week in the Jenin refugee camp in the Seven people were killed, including a wanted assailant and a 14-year-old boy.

“We promise more painful attacks on our occupied lands as (Israeli) aggression continues and their crimes escalate,” said the group, which rules the Gaza Strip.

Israeli police said on Friday they were still investigating the incident and that two men from the Israeli town of Ramle near Tel Aviv and the Bedouin town of Kuseife in the Negev desert had turned themselves in for allegedly transporting the shooter and other occupation Palestinians. West Bank to Israel illegally.

According to Israeli forces, during their raid on Naalin to arrest two relatives of the alleged attacker for questioning, they were met with explosive devices, firebombs and stones. The soldiers returned fire, hitting at least one Palestinian, whose status was not immediately clear.

Prior to his arrest, Khawaja’s father Salah Khawaja said he was proud of his son for the attack. Like many Palestinians who live in an environment where attacks on Israelis are celebrated and their perpetrators glorified, he expressed little sympathy for Israeli civilians and said he understood his son’s desire for revenge.

“Glory to God, Moataz is loved by the whole world,” he told reporters. “Any young person who witnesses such massacres will naturally react.”

Further north, Israeli forces entered the Palestinian town of Tulkarm, a stronghold of an emerging armed group that is increasingly attracting young Palestinians angry at Israeli violence and disillusioned with their leaders. Gunmen opened fire, hitting a military vehicle in the town, the army said. Others threw explosive devices and fired at soldiers from a moving car.

The army said it responded with live ammunition. Neither side immediately reported casualties. Recent months have been marked by an escalation of violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, two territories captured by Israel, along with Gaza, in the 1967 Six-Day War. Palestinians claim these territories for a future independent state.

So far this year, at least 75 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in military raids and other clashes, according to an Associated Press tally. During the same period, Palestinian attacks on Israelis left at least 14 dead, all but one civilian.

The rising death toll has raised fears of a possible further escalation under the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, which has sworn a strong hand against the Palestinians. ______

Associated Press reporter Wafaa Shurafa from Gaza City, Gaza Strip, contributed to this report.