JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian on Friday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, in clashes that broke out in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.
The Israeli military said its soldiers were at immediate risk from a petrol bomb the man threw at them and had therefore opened fire. The military described the confrontation as “a riot” and Palestinian residents said clashes had broken out.
Tensions have risen over the past week after a string of deadly Arab attacks in Israel. Israeli officials had warned about a potential surge in assaults in the run-up in April to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a period during which violence has surged in the past.
On Tuesday, a Palestinian gunman shot dead five people in the Israeli city of Bnei Brak before he was killed by police. The shooting, condemned by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, raised to 11 the number of people killed by Arab attackers in Israel over the past week.
On Thursday, Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in clashes that erupted during a West Bank raid and in a separate incident, a Palestinian stabbed a passenger on an Israeli bus near a West Bank Jewish settlement and was shot dead by another passenger.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has announced a series of measures to deal with what he has described as a new wave of attacks, saying more police would be put on city streets and security would be tightened in areas bordering the West Bank.
(Reporting by Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Editing by Nick Macfie)
