Two people have been shot and seriously wounded near the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Two people have been shot and seriously wounded near the border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan, Israeli first responders said on Sunday, September 8, 2024.

Israeli police said the shooter was killed, without providing further details. The border crossing is used by Palestinians, Israelis, and international tourists. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said two people were in serious condition.

The Israeli-occupied West Bank has seen a surge of violence since Hamas’ Oct 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the war there. Israel has launched near-daily military arrest raids into dense Palestinian residential areas, and there has also been a rise in settler violence and Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

Jenin, Palestinian Territories:

Israel launched a large-scale military operation today in the West Bank, where the army said it killed nine Palestinian fighters, while the nearly 11-month Gaza war showed no signs of abating.

Violence has surged in the West Bank during the Gaza war sparked by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel.

The war has killed more than 40,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. It has also caused widespread destruction, displaced nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million people at least once and triggered a humanitarian crisis.

In the West Bank in the early hours of Wednesday, the Israeli military launched a series of coordinated raids across four cities — Jenin, Nablus, Tubas and Tulkarem.

Columns of Israeli armoured vehicles entered two refugee camps, in Tulkarem and Tubas, as well as Jenin.

By midday, they were blocking entrances to the towns and camps, AFP photographers said, with soldiers firing at the camps from which gunfire and explosions were heard.

Israeli bulldozers dug up asphalt from the streets, with the army saying it was looking for roadside bombs.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces killed nine people and wounded 15 others in the raids, revising its previous toll of 10 dead.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas cut short a visit to Saudi Arabia and headed home to “follow up on the latest developments in light of the Israeli aggression on the northern West Bank”, Palestinian official media said.

The Israeli army said it had killed nine Palestinian “terrorists”, with no casualties so far on its side.

Soldiers encountered explosives and were exchanging fire with militants, said army spokesman Nadav Shoshani. He declined to say how many were involved or how long the operation would last.

The operation, he added, was not “extremely different (from usual army activity in the area) or special”.

‘This Is War’

Foreign Minster Israel Katz had a different take, however, saying the military was “operating in full force since last night” in a bid to “dismantle Iranian-Islamic terror infrastructure”.

In a post on X, he accused Iran, Israel’s main foe in the region, of seeking to “establish an eastern front against Israel” based on the “model” for Gaza and Lebanon, where it backs Hamas and Hezbollah, respectively.

“We must address this threat with the same determination used against terror infrastructures in Gaza, including temporary evacuation of residents and any necessary measures,” Katz said.

“This is a war, and we must win it.”

Since Hamas’s October 7 attack, Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 650 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.

During the same period, at least 19 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, according to Israeli officials.

While Israeli military operations have become a daily occurrence in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, it is rare for these to happen in multiple cities simultaneously.

In recent weeks, Israel’s West Bank operations have focused on the territory’s north, where armed groups are particularly active.

Patients Flee Hospital

Last week, the army announced it had killed a senior Palestinian militant in Lebanon, accusing him of “directing attacks and smuggling weapons” to the West Bank and collaborating with Iranian forces.

Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian Islamist movement allied with Hamas which has a strong presence in the northern West Bank, issued a statement early Wednesday denouncing an “open war” by Israel.

“With this aggression, which aims to transfer the weight of the conflict to the occupied West Bank, the occupier wants to impose a new state of affairs on the ground to annex the West Bank,” the statement said.

Hamas, whose popularity has soared in the West Bank since the Gaza war began, late Tuesday reiterated its call for Palestinians in the territory to “rise up”.

Its statement came in response to comments by far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who said this week he would build a synagogue at Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound if he could.

Ben Gvir, a settler himself, has openly called for the annexation of the West Bank.

In Gaza, families in distress continued to move according to the Israeli army’s evacuation orders.

One of the latest targeted the area around Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, from which “nearly 650 patients have fled”, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said.

The medical charity’s website says it has “quickly opened a field hospital and started receiving patients amid a severe lack of supplies and resources”.

MSF said field hospitals are not a solution, “but a last resort in response to Israel’s dismantling of the healthcare system”.

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported at least 12 dead, including at least one child and a woman, in new Israeli strikes.

Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 40,534 people in Gaza, according to the territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Palestinian children inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Rafah. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Hamas is suggesting during ceasefire negotiations that an independent government of non-partisan figures run post-war Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a member of the Palestinian Islamist movement’s political bureau said Friday.

“We proposed that a non-partisan national competency government manage Gaza and the West Bank after the war”, Hossam Badran said in a statement about the ongoing negotiations between Israel and Hamas with mediation from Qatar, Egypt, and the United States. “The administration of Gaza after the war is a Palestinian internal matter without any external interference, and we will not discuss the day after the war in Gaza with any external parties”, Mr. Badran added.

A Hamas official told AFP the proposal for a non-partisan government was made “with the mediators”.

The government will “manage the affairs of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the initial phase after the war, paving the way for general elections” said the official, who did not want his name disclosed.

Mr. Badran’s remarks came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that Israel retain control of the Philadelphi corridor, Gaza territory along the border with Egypt. This condition conflicts with Hamas’s position that Israel must withdraw from all Gaza territory after a ceasefire.

Mr. Netanyahu said on Thursday that control of the Philadelphi corridor is part of efforts to prevent “weapons to be smuggled to Hamas from Egypt.”

The negotiations are occurring in Doha, Qatar and Cairo, Egypt with the aim of bringing about a ceasefire in Gaza as well as the return of hostages still held there by Hamas.

The war began on October 7 with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures. The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, including 42 the military says are dead.

Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,345 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

West Bank:

An Israeli citizen mistakenly entered the Palestinian town of Qalandiya, situated between Jerusalem and Ramallah, in West Bank and was soon met with aggression from local residents, leading to a violent confrontation.

Videos circulating on social media show a mob of Palestinians chasing the Israeli vehicle, hurling stones at it. The driver attempted to flee but ultimately lost control, crashing into a concrete divider near a military checkpoint, a Times of Israel report said. The man reportedly suffered minor injuries before being rescued and transported to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital.

היהודי הגיע פצוע למחסום קלנדיה, לאחר שנזרקו אבנים לרכבו, והתנגש בבטונדות של המעבר. כוחות מגב משטרה ומד״א הוקפצו לאירוע.
המשך לקלנדייה pic.twitter.com/IpGOuCn7Ig

— כל החדשות בזמן אמת (@Saher95755738) June 29, 2024

Other footage revealed that the vehicle was set ablaze by the Palestinian attackers.

The car of the Jew who accidentally entered Qalandia was set on fire. רכבו של היהודי שנכנס בטעות לקלנדיה, הוצת. pic.twitter.com/PAZkT3z9cY

— Rat Bastard (@RRespawned) June 29, 2024

This incident comes amid a backdrop of escalating violence in the West Bank, an area under Israeli occupation since 1967. Last week, the Israeli military reported the death of a soldier and serious injury to another during an operation in Jenin, a city known for its militant presence. The Israeli army frequently conducts raids in Jenin and its adjacent refugee camp as part of its ongoing security operations.

The West Bank has seen a significant surge in violence, especially following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza on October 7. Palestinian officials report that at least 553 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the conflict began. Meanwhile, attacks by Palestinians have resulted in the deaths of at least 15 Israelis, including soldiers, in the same period, according to news agency AFP.

Ramallah, West Bank:

Israeli aircraft struck a compound beneath a mosque in the occupied West Bank early on Sunday that the military said was being used by terrorists to organise attacks, and Palestinian medics said at least one person was killed.

The Israeli air strike is at least the second in recent days to hit the West Bank, where violence has surged since Hamas gunmen from Gaza carried out a deadly October 7 rampage in Israel.

Israel said the compound beneath al-Ansar Mosque, in Jenin refugee camp, belonged to operatives from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad who were responsible for attacks in recent months.

“Intel was recently received which indicated that the terrorists, (who) were neutralized, were organizing an imminent terror attack,” the military said in a statement.

The military released images that it said showed an entrance to a bunker under the mosque. It also released a diagram that it said showed where terrorists had stored weapons there.

The IDF & ISA just conducted an aerial strike on a Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist compound in the Al-Ansar Mosque in Jenin.

Recent IDF intel revealed that the Mosque was used as a command center to plan and execute terrorist attacks against civilians. pic.twitter.com/gQfyv6wUAV

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 22, 2023

Jenin refugee camp was the focus of a major Israeli military operation earlier this year.

Footage on social media, appearing to show the scene of the air strike, showed a gaping hole in one of the mosque’s exterior walls, surrounded by debris. Several dozen Palestinians are seen assessing the damage, as ambulance sirens blare in the background.

The Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance service said at least one Palestinian was killed and three others injured. It had earlier said that two people were killed.

Residents of the camp said they received warnings from the Israeli military to stay away from the terrorists due to an impending incursion into the camp. They said the military did not specify a date.

Since the October 7 Hamas rampage, which has drawn two weeks of lethal Israeli bombardment of Gaza, at least 84 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces, Palestinian officials say.

On Thursday, Israel’s military said it raided and carried out an air strike in a refugee camp near the central city of Tulkarm. The military said the raid was aimed in part at apprehending suspects and confiscating weapons. Palestinians said at least 12 were killed.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Palestinians inspect a damaged building following an Israeli army raid in Nour Shams refugee camp in the northern West Bank, on September 24, 2023. Palestinians said at least two people were killed in the raid, which the Army said was carried out to destroy a militant command center and bomb-storage facility in the building.
| Photo Credit: AP

Two Palestinians were killed during an Israeli military raid on September 24 in the northern West Bank, Palestinian health officials said, the latest bloodshed in a surge of violence during a sensitive Jewish holiday period.

The Israeli military said it moved into the Nour Shams refugee camp, near the town of Tulkarem, to destroy what it described as a militant command center and bomb-storage facility in a building.

It said that engineering units detonated a number of bombs planted under roads, and that militants opened fire and hurled explosives, as troops responded with live fire.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said two men — Asid Abu Ali, 21, and Abdulrahman Abu Daghash, 32 — were killed by Israeli fire. The raid caused heavy damage to roads and the suspected building.

Israel has been carrying out stepped-up military raids, primarily in the northern West Bank, for the past year and a half in what it says is a campaign to root out Palestinian militants and thwart future attacks.

But Palestinians say the raids entrench Israel’s 56-year occupation over the West Bank. The raids have shown little sign of slowing the fighting and contributed to the weakening of the Palestinian Authority, the self-rule government that administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

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 this year.

The tensions have begun to spread over the past week to the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of Palestinians have been holding daily demonstrations along the fence separating the territory from Israel.

On Saturday, Israeli airstrikes hit a militant site for the second time in as many days, after Palestinians sent incendiary balloons into Israeli farmland and Palestinian protesters threw stones and explosives at soldiers at the separation fence

The spike in violence comes during the Jewish New Year holiday season. Jews are set to mark Yom Kippur, the holiest day on their calendar, on Sunday night followed by the weeklong Sukkot festival later in the month.

During Sukkot, large numbers of Jews are expected to visit Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. The compound, home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, is often a focal point for violence.

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.

All 15 of Israel’s Supreme Court justices appear for the first time in the country’s history to look at the legality of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious judicial overhaul, which the government pushed through parliament in July, in Jerusalem, on Sept. 12, 2023.
| Photo Credit: AP

Israel’s Supreme Court on September 12 opened the first case to look at the legality of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious judicial overhaul— deepening a showdown with the far-right government that has bitterly divided the nation and put the country on the brink of a constitutional crisis.

In a sign of the case’s significance, all 15 of Israel’s Supreme Court justices are hearing appeals to the law together for the first time in Israel’s history. A regular panel is made up of three justices, though they sometimes sit on expanded panels. The proceedings were also being livestreamed.

“It’s a historic day,” said Susie Navot, vice president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank that has been critical of the overhaul. “This is the first time we’ve had this kind of hearing.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition, a collection of ultranationalist and ultrareligious lawmakers, launched the overhaul early this year, shortly after taking office. Proponents of the plan say the country’s unelected judiciary, led by the Supreme Court, wields too much power. Critics say the plan to weaken the Supreme Court removes a key safeguard and will concentrate power in the hands of Mr. Netanyahu and his far-right allies.

The hearing on September 12 puts the country’s senior justices in the unprecedented position of deciding whether to accept limits to their own powers. It focuses on the first law passed by parliament in July — a measure that cancels the court’s ability to strike down government decisions it deems to be “unreasonable.” Judges have used the legal standard in the past to prevent government decisions viewed as unsound or corrupt.

The judicial overhaul — which opponents characterize as a profound threat to Israeli democracy — has infuriated Israelis across many segments of society, bringing hundreds of thousands into the streets to march at one protest after another for the past 36 weeks.

The protesters have come largely from the country’s secular middle class. Leading high-tech business figures have threatened to relocate. Perhaps most dramatically, thousands of military reservists have broken with the government and declared their refusal to report for duty over the plan.

Mr. Netanyahu’s supporters tend to be poorer, more religious and live in West Bank settlements or outlying rural areas. Many of his supporters are working-class Mizrahi Jews, with roots in Middle Eastern countries, and have expressed hostility toward what they say is an elitist class of Ashkenazi, or European, Jews.

Late on September 11, tens of thousands of Israeli protesters crowded around the Supreme Court, waving national flags and chanting against the government.

The law passed as an amendment to what in Israel is known as a “Basic Law,” a special piece of legislation that serves as a sort of constitution, which Israel does not have. The court has never struck down a “Basic Law” before but says it has the right to do so. The government says it does not.

In a statement ahead of September 12th’s hearing, Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin said the court “lacks all authority” to review the law.

“It is a fatal blow to democracy and the status of the Knesset,” he said, insisting that lawmakers elected by the public should have the final say over the legislation.

The petitioners asking the court to strike down the law include a handful of civil society groups advocating for human rights and good governance. A ruling is not expected on September 12, but the hearing could hint at the court’s direction.

The case is at the heart of a wider contest in Israel between fundamentally different interpretations of democracy. Mr. Netanyahu and his coalition say that as elected representatives, they have a democratic mandate to govern without being hobbled by the court, which they portray as a bastion of the secular, left-leaning elite.

Opponents say that the court is the only check on majority rule in a country with such a weak system of checks and balances — just one house of parliament, a figurehead president and no firm, written constitution.

They say that without the power to review and overturn some government decisions, Mr. Netanyahu’s government could appoint convicted cronies to Cabinet posts, roll back rights for women and minorities, and annex the occupied West Bank — laws that the court with its current powers would be likely to strike down.

“We must remember that democracies don’t die in one day anymore,” Ms. Navot from the Israel Democracy Institute said. “Democracies die slowly, step by step, law by law. And therefore we should be very careful with this kind of judicial overhaul.”

The political survival of Mr. Netanyahu, who returned to power late last year while on trial for corruption, depends on his hard-line, religiously conservative coalition partners who have threatened to rebel if he forestalls the legislation.

Mr. Netanyahu has refused to say clearly whether he would respect a decision by the court to strike down the new law. Some members of his coalition, including Mr. Levin, have hinted that the government could ignore the court’s decision.

Legal experts warn that could spark constitutional crisis, where citizens and the country’s security forces are left to decide whose orders to follow — the parliament’s or the court’s — thrusting the country into uncharted territory.

Israeli police on Wednesday shot and killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy who stabbed a man in a Jerusalem light-rail station, officials said, while Palestinian militants detonated a bomb near a convoy of Israeli troops escorting Jewish worshippers to a holy site in the occupied West Bank, wounding four Israeli troops.

The attacks came hours after fighting erupted in a Palestinian refugee camp between local residents and their own security forces, leaving a 25-year-old Palestinian man dead.

The bloodshed was the latest in a deadly wave of violence that has gripped the area over the past year and a half and shows no signs of slowing.

The Israeli army said that the late-night explosion in Nablus — a stronghold of Palestinian militants in the northern West Bank — wounded an Israeli military officer and three soldiers.

The soldiers were evacuated to a nearby hospital for treatment. One was moderately wounded and the rest suffered only light wounds. Amateur video on social media showed a large plume of white smoke rising into the air after the blast.

The troops were escorting worshippers to Joseph’s Tomb – a flashpoint shrine where some Jews believe the biblical Joseph is buried. The Israeli army said the blast struck when its forces were trying to clear the way for worshippers and that no civilians were harmed.

Muslims say a sheikh is buried in the shrine. The army escorts Jewish worshippers to the site several times a year in coordination with Palestinian security forces.

But security coordination has weakened during the wave of fighting, and the unpopular Palestinian security forces have struggled to maintain control in militant strongholds like Nablus.

The explosion came shortly after Wednesday’s stabbing in Jerusalem – in which police said a Palestinian teen attacked a man, moderately wounding him, before he was shot and killed.

The incident occurred along the invisible line straddling east and west Jerusalem.

According to police, the boy stabbed the man on a platform at the station. An off-duty member of the paramilitary border police force in a train noticed the attack, got off the train and shot the attacker. Police later released a photo of what they said was the knife, its tip stained with blood.

However, it was unclear if the boy, identified as a resident of a Palestinian neighborhood in east Jerusalem, was still armed when he was killed in what was described as a fast-moving incident.

The police statement said a crowd of people “began to struggle with the terrorist” after the stabbing.

One witness, Eldad Bar-Kochva, told the Ynet news site that he was sitting at the station with his wife when the boy took out the knife.

“We pounced on him, I gave him a strong kick in the face and hand, and the knife fell out of his hand. A border policeman ran over and shot him,” he said, adding that the entire incident unfolded in about 30 seconds. Police praised the “professional and swift response” of the officer and said security camera footage wasn’t immediately available.

Earlier Wednesday, fighting erupted in a refugee camp in the northern West Bank between Palestinians and their own security forces, leaving a 25-year-old Palestinian dead, officials said. The unrest underscored the challenges facing Palestinian police trying to impose order in the restive territory.

Palestinian police entered the refugee camp in Tulkarem after residents appealed to the Palestinian Authority to remove metal street barriers set up by local militants that were blocking access to homes and schools, Palestinian security spokesperson Talal Dweikat said.

The angled metal barricades are a staple in the militarized refugee camps of the northern West Bank, meant to deter Israeli military vehicles during frequent army raids.

After police cleared the streets, Dweikat said Palestinian militants opened fire in front of the Tulkarem Muqata, the authority headquarters. Police responded “to control the security situation,” he added.

A Palestinian security officer in Tulkarem, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said that an uninvolved Palestinian resident who he identified as the 25-year-old was caught in the crossfire and killed.

He claimed the Palestinian security forces had fired tear gas and stun grenades at Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants but not live fire. Palestinians, he said, were seeking to conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death but the local militant group refused and was keeping his body.

The Hamas militant group condemned the death.

In flashpoint point cities in the northern West Bank under the administration of the Palestinian Authority, attempts by Palestinian security forces to reassert internal control have stirred anger among defiant militants, who deride the unpopular authority and its leader, President Mahmoud Abbas, as collaborators with Israel. The PA administers semi-autonomous areas in the Israeli-occupied territory.

Unable to protect Palestinians against surging attacks by Jewish settlers and often deadly Israeli military raids into Palestinian towns and cities, Palestinian security forces have faced deep public criticism over their perceived impotence and reviled security alliance with Israel.

Nearly 180 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since the start of this year, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and those not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.

Some 30 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis during that time.

Israel says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks. Palestinians say the raids undermine their security forces, inspire more militancy and entrench Israeli control over lands they seek for a hoped-for future state.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

Israeli police on Wednesday shot and killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy who stabbed a man in a Jerusalem light-rail station, officials said, while Palestinian militants detonated a bomb near a convoy of Israeli troops escorting Jewish worshippers to a holy site in the occupied West Bank, wounding four Israeli troops.

The attacks came hours after fighting erupted in a Palestinian refugee camp between local residents and their own security forces, leaving a 25-year-old Palestinian man dead.

The bloodshed was the latest in a deadly wave of violence that has gripped the area over the past year and a half and shows no signs of slowing.

The Israeli army said that the late-night explosion in Nablus — a stronghold of Palestinian militants in the northern West Bank — wounded an Israeli military officer and three soldiers.

The soldiers were evacuated to a nearby hospital for treatment. One was moderately wounded and the rest suffered only light wounds. Amateur video on social media showed a large plume of white smoke rising into the air after the blast.

The troops were escorting worshippers to Joseph’s Tomb – a flashpoint shrine where some Jews believe the biblical Joseph is buried. The Israeli army said the blast struck when its forces were trying to clear the way for worshippers and that no civilians were harmed.

Muslims say a sheikh is buried in the shrine. The army escorts Jewish worshippers to the site several times a year in coordination with Palestinian security forces.

But security coordination has weakened during the wave of fighting, and the unpopular Palestinian security forces have struggled to maintain control in militant strongholds like Nablus.

The explosion came shortly after Wednesday’s stabbing in Jerusalem – in which police said a Palestinian teen attacked a man, moderately wounding him, before he was shot and killed.

The incident occurred along the invisible line straddling east and west Jerusalem.

According to police, the boy stabbed the man on a platform at the station. An off-duty member of the paramilitary border police force in a train noticed the attack, got off the train and shot the attacker. Police later released a photo of what they said was the knife, its tip stained with blood.

However, it was unclear if the boy, identified as a resident of a Palestinian neighborhood in east Jerusalem, was still armed when he was killed in what was described as a fast-moving incident.

The police statement said a crowd of people “began to struggle with the terrorist” after the stabbing.

One witness, Eldad Bar-Kochva, told the Ynet news site that he was sitting at the station with his wife when the boy took out the knife.

“We pounced on him, I gave him a strong kick in the face and hand, and the knife fell out of his hand. A border policeman ran over and shot him,” he said, adding that the entire incident unfolded in about 30 seconds. Police praised the “professional and swift response” of the officer and said security camera footage wasn’t immediately available.

Earlier Wednesday, fighting erupted in a refugee camp in the northern West Bank between Palestinians and their own security forces, leaving a 25-year-old Palestinian dead, officials said. The unrest underscored the challenges facing Palestinian police trying to impose order in the restive territory.

Palestinian police entered the refugee camp in Tulkarem after residents appealed to the Palestinian Authority to remove metal street barriers set up by local militants that were blocking access to homes and schools, Palestinian security spokesperson Talal Dweikat said.

The angled metal barricades are a staple in the militarized refugee camps of the northern West Bank, meant to deter Israeli military vehicles during frequent army raids.

After police cleared the streets, Dweikat said Palestinian militants opened fire in front of the Tulkarem Muqata, the authority headquarters. Police responded “to control the security situation,” he added.

A Palestinian security officer in Tulkarem, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said that an uninvolved Palestinian resident who he identified as the 25-year-old was caught in the crossfire and killed.

He claimed the Palestinian security forces had fired tear gas and stun grenades at Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants but not live fire. Palestinians, he said, were seeking to conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death but the local militant group refused and was keeping his body.

The Hamas militant group condemned the death.

In flashpoint point cities in the northern West Bank under the administration of the Palestinian Authority, attempts by Palestinian security forces to reassert internal control have stirred anger among defiant militants, who deride the unpopular authority and its leader, President Mahmoud Abbas, as collaborators with Israel. The PA administers semi-autonomous areas in the Israeli-occupied territory.

Unable to protect Palestinians against surging attacks by Jewish settlers and often deadly Israeli military raids into Palestinian towns and cities, Palestinian security forces have faced deep public criticism over their perceived impotence and reviled security alliance with Israel.

Nearly 180 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since the start of this year, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Israel says most of the Palestinians killed were militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and those not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.

Some 30 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks against Israelis during that time.

Israel says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks. Palestinians say the raids undermine their security forces, inspire more militancy and entrench Israeli control over lands they seek for a hoped-for future state.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.