The unrelenting Israeli violence in occupied West Bank continued Thursday when a Palestinian man was shot dead during a military raid.
The death brings the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank this year to 168, according to a Associated Press tally.
The killing comes amid soaring tensions surrounding Israel’s continuing raids into Palestinian areas in the occupied territory and after the release to house arrest of a Jewish settler accused of involvement in the killing last week of a 19-year-old Palestinian man.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Thursday that Israeli troops killed Amir Ahmed Khalifa, 27, in the West Bank town of Zawata, north of the city Nablus. The area has been a flashpoint for clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinians.
The Israeli military claimed that Khalifa allegedly opened fire at soldiers raiding the Nablus area who responded with deadly force.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed wing of the secular Fatah party, later Thursday claimed Khalifa as a member.
Israel has staged near-nightly incursions in Palestinian areas in what it says is a bid to dismantle alleged militant networks and thwart future attacks.
The raids have sparked some of the worst clashes between the sides in the West Bank in about two decades and driven up the death toll.
Israel claims most of those killed are armed fighters but stone-throwing youths protesting the raids and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.
Israel captured the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, in the 1967 Six-Day War. The Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state.
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