Reuters / May 30, 2020
Officers chased man suspected of carrying a pistol in Old City amid heightened tensions.
Israeli police officers have shot dead a Palestinian they suspected was carrying a weapon in Jerusalem’s Old City, but the man was later found to have been unarmed, Israeli media reported.
“Police units on patrol spotted a suspect with a suspicious object that looked like a pistol,” the police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. “They called upon him to stop and began to chase after him on foot. During the chase officers also opened fire at the suspect.”
Rosenfeld said the suspect, a Palestinian resident of east Jerusalem, was dead.
Police did not say whether the man had been carrying a weapon, but Israel’s Channel 13 News reported that he was unarmed and may have had mental health problems.
There was no immediate comment from Palestinian officials.
Tension has risen in recent weeks after Israel said it hoped to move ahead with a plan to extend sovereignty to Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinians, Arab states, the United Nations and European states have warned against the move and the Palestinians have declared an end to security cooperation with Israel and the United States in protest.
On Friday, the Israeli military said its troops in the West Bank shot and killed a Palestinian who had tried to run them over with a car.
