Smoke billows as Israeli forces clash with Palestinians following the funeral of 19-year-old Labib Damidi, who was shot in an overnight attack in the village of Huwara, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank village on October 06, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AFP

A Palestinian was killed early Friday during clashes with Israeli soldiers and settlers in a town that has been the scene of frequent violence in the occupied West Bank, multiple sources said.

“Labib Mohammad Labib Dmidi, 19, was shot in the heart by settlers in the town of Huwara,” the Palestinian health ministry said in a brief statement.

The Israeli army said in a statement that a suspect had been shot by soldiers, and a military spokesman said later he was unable to confirm whether the Palestinian had been killed or wounded.

Huwara is a town in the northern West Bank that has this year witnessed several fatal shootings by Palestinians against Israelis in cars and reprisal attacks by Jewish settlers against locals and their property.

Mayor Moin Dmidi told AFP that the young Palestinian man had sought refuge on the roof of his house, which was being attacked by settlers, when one of them shot him dead.

Another resident of the town, Abderrahman Dmidi, said the attack took place as dozens of settlers descended on Huwara overnight.

“More than 200 settlers gathered in the middle of Huwara after midnight, shouting and dancing, some of them with covered faces,” he told AFP.

“They began throwing stones towards some houses, and then the young people… tried to defend their homes by throwing stones,” he added.

The confrontation came after the Israeli army said soldiers shot dead a Palestinian who had opened fire on a car stuck in traffic at a junction adjacent to Huwara late Thursday, without hitting any of the Israeli civilians inside.

After midnight, the army said, dozens of Israeli civilians gathered in an area of Huwara and engaged in stone-throwing clashes with Palestinians, before soldiers intervened with “riot dispersal means to defuse the confrontation”.

It said a suspect “threw a block at an Israeli vehicle”, prompting soldiers to respond with live fire. It added that “a hit was identified”.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said it treated 58 people at the scene of the clashes who had suffered from tear gas inhalation.

The military said it had received reports “regarding vandalism of the properties of Palestinian residents of the town by Israeli civilians”.

The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the events in Huwara, referring to them as a “heinous crime committed by a hateful and racist settler,” demonstrating the “perpetuation of crimes and attacks by organised settler militias against our people.”

In February, dozens of Israeli settlers set fire to numerous buildings in Huwara after a Palestinian gunman killed two Israelis in the town.

A surge in violence has hit the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

There has been a rise in army raids, Palestinian attacks targeting Israelis and Israeli settler violence against Palestinians and their property.

So far this year at least 247 Palestinians, 32 Israelis and two foreigners have been killed in the conflict, including combatants and civilians on both sides, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials.

Gunmen hold weapons during the funeral of Palestinians who were killed in an Israeli raid in Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank September 20,2023.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank and unrest in the Gaza Strip have killed six Palestinians, Palestinian health officials said Wednesday, the latest spike in a wave of violence that has roiled the region for more than a year. At least three of those killed were claimed as militant fighters.

The death toll from the most recent flare-up stood at four late Tuesday. But on Wednesday the Palestinian Health Ministry raised it, saying an Israeli raid into the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank killed four people and wounded some 30 others, while a raid in a separate refugee camp killed another Palestinian. A sixth Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire in unrest in the Gaza Strip, officials said.

The deadly violence between Israel and the Palestinians over the last year and a half has surged to levels unseen in the West Bank in some two decades. Israel has stepped up its raids on Palestinian areas and Palestinian attacks against Israelis have been mounting. Tensions also appear to be spreading to Gaza.

The Israeli military said Wednesday that troops opened fire toward a Palestinian who was throwing explosives at them while they were on an overnight arrest raid in the refugee camp of Aqabat Jabr. The camp, near the Palestinian city of Jericho, has emerged as one of the focal points of Israel’s raids.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli forces killed 19-year-old Dhargham al-Akhras in the raid.

The bloodshed in the Jenin camp hours earlier was the latest in that stronghold of Palestinian militants where the Israeli military often carries out deadly raids. In July, Israel launched its most intense operation in the West Bank in nearly two decades, leaving widespread destruction in the camp.

The army said that forces carried out a rare strike Tuesday with a suicide drone during the operation and exchanged fire with gunmen in Jenin. While leaving the camp, the army said, an explosive detonated underneath an army truck as gunmen opened fire, damaging the vehicle. No soldiers were injured.

Three of those killed in Jenin were claimed as members of the Hamas militant group or the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and were identified as Mahmoud al-Sadi, 23, Mahmoud Ararawi, 24, and Ata Yasser Musa, 29.

Videos posted on social media showed medics unloading the wounded at a hospital, while in other videos, explosions and gunfire could be heard echoing in the camp. As Israeli soldiers withdrew, a crowd of young men chanted: “Oh, you who ask, who are we? We are the Jenin Brigade.”

After the Israeli military withdrew from the Jenin camp, dozens of gunmen and residents poured into the streets to protest against the Palestinian Authority and its failure to protect them, according to footage shared by residents.

Israel says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks.

Some 190 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the year, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Israel says most of those killed have been militants, but youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.

At least 31 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis since the beginning of 2023.

In the Gaza violence, health officials said the Israeli military killed a 25-year-old Palestinian along the volatile frontier with Israel as youths mounted violent protests at a separation fence.

Unrest over the past week has escalated tensions and prompted Israel to bar entry to thousands of Palestinian laborers from the impoverished enclave.

Over the last week, dozens of Palestinians — burning tires and hurling explosive devices at Israeli soldiers — have streamed toward the fence separating Israel from Gaza, which has been under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade since 2007. Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent the ruling Hamas militant group from arming itself.

Hamas says youths have organized the protests in response to Israeli provocations.

Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state.

Palestinian gunmen wait to escort the body of Abdulrahim Ghannam, 36, during his funeral in the West Bank town of Aqaba, near Tubas, on September 1, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Israeli forces on Friday killed a Palestinian in the West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, as a surge of deadly violence in the occupied territory shows no signs of abating.

The ministry said Abdul Rahim Fayez Ghannam, 36, was “shot by live occupation (Israeli) fire in the head” in the village of Al-Aqaba in the northern West Bank.

An AFP photographer saw black smoke billowing from a building during the military raid.

The Israeli army said in a statement a firefight broke out between militants and soldiers and “a hit was identified on one of the gunmen.”

Troops also “used shoulder-fired missiles and grenades” in the violence, and subsequently found improvised explosive devices and other weapons in the building, the statement said.

After Israeli forces withdrew, Palestinian residents inspected bullet marks and a gaping hole left in the wall of a house.

Mourners gathered for the funeral of Ghannam, whose head was wrapped in a keffiyeh while his body was shrouded in a Palestinian flag.

The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank and Israel this year is the highest since 2005, according to the United Nations’ humanitarian agency OCHA.

The soaring violence has also involved a rise in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

On Thursday, a Palestinian man rammed into Israeli soldiers near a West Bank checkpoint, killing one, before being shot dead.

A day earlier, Israeli forces killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy in Jerusalem after he stabbed a passenger on a tram.

So far this year, at least 225 Palestinians, 32 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian have been killed in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to an AFP tally based on official sources on both sides.