Al-Jazeera / March 10, 2023
Israeli military says Palestinian was armed, but the man’s family say they do not believe he had any affiliation with armed groups.
A Jewish settler has shot dead a Palestinian man near an illegal Jewish settlement in the northern occupied West Bank, officials have said.
The Israeli military said that the Palestinian had been armed with knives and an explosive device, and had entered a farm on Friday near Karnei Shomron, which is near the Palestinian city of Qalqilya.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed that a Palestinian man had been killed by a settler, and named the man as 21-year-old Abdulkarim Badie Sheikh, but did not provide any further details about the incident.
The Palestinian news agency, WAFA, said that Israeli soldiers then entered the nearby town of Sanniriya, where Sheikh was from, and “ransacked” several houses, including that of Sheikh’s family.
Relatives of the man killed said that he was religious but were not aware of any membership in Palestinian armed groups. They said the military was still withholding his body.
The Israeli military said separately that its forces had raided Nilin, a town near the Palestinian city of Ramallah, overnight and opened fire on a crowd throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, hitting one person, without specifying whether they were killed or wounded.
Palestinian officials did not immediately note any casualties from the raid in Nilin.
On Thursday, a Hamas gunman opened fire in Tel Aviv, wounding three people, one of them critically, before being killed by police and passersby. The group said the attack was a response to Israel’s killing of three Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank earlier that day.
During the raid in Nilin, the Israeli military said it arrested two relatives of the Hamas gunman and earmarked his home for demolition.
Palestinians and rights groups condemn home demolitions as collective punishment, and illegal under international law.
Over the past year, Israeli forces have made thousands of arrests in the West Bank and killed more than 200 Palestinians, including fighters and civilians. More than 40 Israelis and foreign nationals have died in attacks by Palestinians over the same period.
Israeli raids have become deadlier this year since a new far-right government came into power, empowering settler groups in the occupied West Bank, who recently rampaged through the town of Huwara in an attack that has been labelled a “pogrom”.
Jewish settlements, illegal under international law, house between 600,000 and 750,000 Jewish settlers across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, despite Palestinians seeking the land as part of a future state.
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES
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West Bank: Jewish settler kills Palestinian near Qalqilya
MEE Staff
Middle East Eye / March 10, 2023
Killing comes amid increased tensions triggered by a spike in Israeli deadly attacks and a resurgence of Palestinian resistance.
A Jewish settler killed a Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank on Friday, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Abd al-Karim Badie al-Shaikh, 21, was shot dead after he entered the Ma’ale Shomron settlement east of the Palestinian city of Qalqilya.
The Israeli military alleged al-Shaikh infiltrated the farm equipped with a knife and makeshift “explosive devices” and claimed he was planning to carry out an attack.
Nearly 700,000 Jewish settlers live in more than 250 Jewish settlements and outposts across the West Bank and East Jerusalem in violation of international law.
Tensions have been high across Israel and Palestine in recent months amid a spike in Israeli deadly attacks and a resurgence of Palestinian armed resistance.
On Thursday evening a Palestinian man opened fire on a busy Tel Aviv street and wounded three people, two of them were left in critical condition.
The shooter, identified as a 23-year-old from Ramallah, was later shot dead by armed civilians and police officers at the scene.
The incident followed yet another deadly Israeli raid in the West Bank earlier in the day that killed three Palestinians.
Israeli forces have killed at least 77 Palestinians this year, which corresponds to a rate of nearly one killing every day.
It’s the bloodiest start to a year since 2000, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
At least 13 Israelis were killed by Palestinians in the same period.
In recent months there has been a notable shift in the Israeli army’s tactics, with deadly nighttime and daytime raids in the West Bank becoming commonplace.
In a raid on Jenin earlier this year, the Israeli military killed 10 Palestinians in a single day. Another similar, large-scale operation in Nablus last month left 11 Palestinians dead, including at least four unarmed people.
Jewish settler violence has also surged. UN data shows there has been a 137 percent increase in settler attacks between 2020 and 2022. Suspected settlers have killed at least 10 Palestinians since 2022.
There are concerns a wider flare-up may happen this April when Passover, Easter, and Ramadan all overlap.
This means that Israeli settlers will try to make unsolicited visits to the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque for Passover, which because it is during Ramadan, will be a time when the mosque is normally filled with Muslim worshippers.
Such settler and police incursions in the past have led to massive outbreaks of violence.
