4 Palestinians, 1 Israeli dead after West Bank shooting
Four Palestinians and one Israeli were killed in a shooting in the northern West Bank, health officials said on Friday. Several more people were injured.
The circumstances of the shooting, which occurred near the city of Nablus, were not immediately clear. Violence in the Israeli-occupied territory has flared in recent days. The Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah said the four Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces.
Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue services did not say who had killed the Israeli man. Palestinian health officials said they were treating four injured Palestinians, three in critical condition. Israel’s rescue service said two injured Israelis were being airlifted out of the West Bank.
The Israeli military said in a statement that soldiers responded to a report of an attack on Israeli civilians hiking near the settlement of Havat Gilad, west of Nablus. It said it had imposed a “temporary cordon” around Nablus and the nearby Palestinian village of Tell.
More than a dozen gunshots can be heard in the footage, which is less than a minute long.
The military said the suspect was one of the people killed in the field. It did not respond to questions about why soldiers killed the other men — all of whom were related — or how long after the original altercation the killings took place.
Later, army chief Eyal Zamir said he was sending more troops to the occupied West Bank, where soldiers have encircled Tell and the nearby city of Nablus. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said Israel would “act forcefully” following the incident.
