A Palestinian man was fatally shot outside an Israeli settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Israeli settlers carried out nearly 150 attacks on Palestinians and their properties across the region, according to reports on Sunday by Palestinian state media and the Israeli Army.
The Israeli military said the man who was shot, Karam Salman, 18, was armed with a handgun and fired on by a settlement security team in Kedumim. The Palestinian official news agency, Wafa, reported that the circumstances of Mr. Salman’s killing were unclear.
Tensions and violence have gripped the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jerusalem for days after an Israeli military raid on Thursday killed nine people. The raid was the deadliest military incursion in the occupied West Bank in at least a half-decade.
On Friday night, a Palestinian gunman killed seven people outside a synagogue in a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, the deadliest attack on civilians in the city since 2008. And on Saturday, an attacker who the police said was 13 years old shot and injured two Israelis near another Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem.
Palestinian officials said that across the West Bank on Saturday night and into early Sunday, Israeli settlers had carried out 144 attacks against Palestinian civilians and their properties. One official, Ghassan Daghlas, told Wafa that the attackers had hurled stones at more than 1,000 motorists and vehicles and had set fire to six vehicles in a wave of settler violence.
At least 22 Palestinian-owned shops were attacked and at least one Palestinian home near the city of Ramallah was set on fire by settlers, Palestinian media reported.
On Saturday night, a gunman opened fire on a restaurant in a settlement in the West Bank near the city of Jericho, the Israeli military said. After firing one bullet, the gunman fled the scene, the army said. No one was injured.
In several Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem, clashes broke out between the Israeli police, who were armed with rubber bullets and tear gas, and Palestinians, who had stones and firecrackers, according to Palestinian media. At least one Palestinian man was shot and injured by Israeli forces during the confrontations, Wafa reported.
Israel’s new far-right government announced a number of measures on Saturday night to exact a price on Palestinian attackers and those who support them, it said. But the measures could further inflame the situation and stoke violence as the government plans to expedite gun licenses for Israeli citizens; to reinforce military and police units to carry out more arrests of Palestinians; and to conduct operations aimed at seizing Palestinians’ weapons.
The recent Palestinian attacks, including Friday night’s shooting outside a synagogue and Saturday’s shooting, have targeted Israeli settlements and settlers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The settlements are considered illegal under international law and by much of the international community.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet said on Saturday that it would take steps to strengthen security in the settlements.
The violence has marked a bloody and deadly beginning to 2023, with the killings of at least 30 Palestinians, including five people under 18, and seven Israelis.
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