
File Photo: Israeli soldiers patrol in the village of Yabad near the West Bank city of Jenin, on May 12, 2020. AP
The circumstances behind the death were not immediately clear. Israeli media reported the man was carrying a knife and attempted to stab the soldiers who were standing guard near a Jewish settlement.
The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the man as Ahmad Kahla, 45, who was shot at the western entrance of the town near the village of Silwad, east of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
Tensions have been surging for months in the occupied territory, where the Israeli military has been staging nightly arrest raids since last spring. The raids were prompted by a wave of Palestinian attacks against Israelis that killed 19 people, while another 10 Israelis were killed in a second string of attacks later last year.
Israeli forces shot the man after they verbally clashes with him and forced him out of his vehicle before shooting him point-blank. According to witnesses who told the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
With the killing of Kahla, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces has risen to 13 since the beginning of 2023, including three children.
Nearly 224 Palestinians were killed by Israeli occupation forces in 2022, including more than 150 fatalities in the West Bank, making 2022 the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank in 18 years. according to Palestinian Health Ministry’s statistics.
Israel says most of the dead were militants. But Palestinian stone-throwers, youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations also have been killed.
The Palestinians see the raids as the further entrenchment of Israel's open-ended, 55-year occupation of lands they seek for their future independent state. While Israel claims that the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, territories the Palestinians want for their hoped-for state. Israel has since settled 500,000 people in about 130 settlements across the West Bank, which the Palestinians and much of the international community view as an obstacle to peace.
**This story was edited by Ahram Online
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