West Bank violence stays high

 

Violence in the West Bank persisted Saturday with a Palestinian killed by Israeli forces at a checkpoint and Israelis attacking Palestinian residents, officials on both sides said.

The latest incidents add to a mounting toll which has cost four Israeli and 16 Palestinians lives across the territory since Monday.

At the Qalandia checkpoint north of Jerusalem, Israeli police said a "suspect opened fire at the security forces", who shot back early Saturday.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a Palestinian group, in a statement said "our heroic fighters... were able to directly target occupation soldiers at Qalandia checkpoint."

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa identified the person shot dead as Ishaq al-Ajluni, aged 17 or 18, from the Kufr Aqab neighbourhood just north of the checkpoint.

Later Saturday, the Israeli military reported "violent friction between Israeli citizens and Palestinian" residents in the northern West Bank village of Umm Safa.

"Rocks were hurled and reports were received of Israeli citizens setting fire to Palestinian property," an army statement said, adding that a soldier was wounded and one Israeli was arrested.

 Ambulance attacked

The Palestinian health ministry said an ambulance "was stoned by Israeli settlers near the village of Umm Safa" on Saturday, wounding the driver. Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War and, excluding annexed east Jerusalem, the territory is now home to around 490,000 Israelis who live in settlements considered illegal under international law. The Palestinians, who seek their own independent state, want Israel to withdraw from all land it occupied in the Six-Day War and to dismantle all Jewish settlements.