IDF forces in West Bank
Photo: MCT
Palestinian shot by IDF dies of wounds
Mohammad Saleh, 18, was shot while attempting to cross West Bank barrier fence, making him third Palestinian to die in as many days due to increased violence.
A Palestinian shot by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank died of his wounds on Tuesday, a hospital official said, the third Palestinian killed in a flare-up of violence over the past three days.
The IDF said soldiers spotted several Palestinians trying to cut through Israel's barrier in the West Bank, near the Jewish settlement of Shaked, on Monday and called on them to halt.
Archive photo: AFP
"When they refused, the forces responded with fire toward an instigator's lower extremities," a military spokeswoman said.
Mohammad Saleh, 18, was hit in a main artery and doctors were unable to save him, said Tarif Ashour, a Palestinian Health Ministry official.
Violence has flared intermittently since Israelis killed a Palestinian youth in Jerusalem in an alleged revenge for the Palestinian killing of three Israeli teenagers last year, just before a 50-day war with the Hamas militants who control Gaza.
US-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed a year ago. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has since stepped up unilateral moves at the United Nations towards Palestinian statehood in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
One of Saleh's relatives said the teenager was walking in fields near the barrier after a wedding celebration and had not attempted to cross it. "There was no provocation," said the family member, Munib Hammad, who did not witness the incident but heard accounts from others who were with Saleh.
On Saturday, Israeli security forces killed two knife-wielding Palestinian attackers in separate incidents in the West Bank city of Hebron and in East Jerusalem, Israeli police said.
The family of one of the alleged assailants, 17-year-old Ali Abu Ghannam, said he was unarmed and on his way home from a party in East Jerusalem.
Also on Saturday, three Israeli police officers were injured when a car rammed into them in a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem. Police said it was a deliberate attack and that they arrested the driver, who fled the scene, hours later.
