A Palestinian lawyer and a teenager have been killed on the fifth day of Israeli raids in the West Bank following deadly attacks in the Jewish state, amid heightened tensions after a religious site was vandalised.
Two Palestinians were killed after an Israeli raid early on Thursday, while three others were killed on Wednesday, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Israel has poured in additional forces and is reinforcing its wall and fence barrier with the occupied territory after four deadly attacks claimed 14 lives in Israel, most of them civilians, in the past three weeks.
Wednesday’s deaths bring to 17 the number of Palestinian fatalities in the ongoing escalation.
The Palestinian health ministry said human rights lawyer Muhammad Hassan Muhammad Assaf, 34, “died after being shot in the chest by the Israeli occupation army during the aggression on the city of Nablus”, in the northern West Bank.
Seperately, the Israeli military confirmed the 14-year-old’s death on Wednesday evening, saying he had thrown a petrol bomb at the soldiers who “used live ammunition in order to stop the immediate threat”.
Hundreds of Palestinians were rioting in the area following the incident, the army said.
Violent clashes had erupted earlier in the day in Nablus, where Israeli forces were escorting a work crew that came to repair Joseph’s Tomb.
The site is sacred to Jews and was smashed in an act of vandalism last weekend.
Israeli troops racing through the city’s streets in an armoured convoy opened fire as a crowd pelted them with rocks and incendiary devices.
“Hundreds of Palestinians instigated a violent riot, burned tyres and hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails at the soldiers”, who responded with “riot dispersal means and live ammunition”, the army said.
Israel has sent troops to comb through Palestinians cities and villages in recent days, looking for suspects or accomplices tied to recent Palestinian attacks on Israelis. Last week, a Palestinian gunman opened fire on a packed Tel Aviv bar, killing three and fleeing the scene, sparking an hours-long manhunt that culminated in his killing by police.
That assault, as well as three other attacks elsewhere in Israel in recent weeks, have killed 14 people, the deadliest outburst of bloodshed against Israelis in years.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s office accused Israel of destabilizing the West Bank, saying the situation “has become dangerous and sensitive and is rapidly deteriorating.”
The clashes have come during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and ahead of the start of Passover on Friday, an overlap that can heighten tensions around sacred sites in Jerusalem’s Old City.
Last year Hamas, the Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, fired rockets towards Jerusalem following disturbances at the al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, setting off a devastating 11-day war.
