Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: An Israeli-American was shot and killed in the occupied West Bank on Monday as retaliatory unrest escalates.
The man was killed during a vehicle attack on a highway near Jericho. The shooting occurred on Sunday night in the West Bank after Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villages resulting in the destruction of dozens of cars and houses.
That attack came after a Palestinian shot dead two settlers from a nearby village on Sunday. The man killed near Jericho was taken to a hospital in Jerusalem by paramedics but later pronounced dead.
American citizen killed in one of the West Bank terror attacks
US Ambassador Tom Nides posted on Twitter that unfortunately, “I can confirm that a US citizen was killed in one of the West Bank terror attacks tonight.”
According to the Israeli defence forces, attackers opened fire on Israeli vehicles three times before setting fire to their own vehicles. The attackers exchanged fire with Israeli police before fleeing, according to the IDF.
The Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, but is less visible in the West Bank, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was a natural response to Israeli attacks. According to a Hamas spokesman, the crimes committed by Israel and herds of settlers will be met with stabbing, shooting, and car-ramming.
Following a summit in Jordan, Israeli and Palestinian officials vowed to de-escalate tensions. Videos which were posted hours after the summit ended on Sunday showed a big crowd of Israeli settlers lighting fires and throwing stones in the village of Hawara, about 4 miles (6 kilometers) south of Nablus.
Sameh Aqtash, 37, died during a settlers’ attack in Zaatara on Sunday night after being shot in the stomach, according to the Palestinian health ministry. The area of the West Bank is completely under Israeli control, and Palestinians have been critical of Israeli for failing to protect them. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stated that he held the Israeli government entirely accountable for what he called “the terrorist acts conducted out by Israeli settlers, under the protection of the Israeli occupying forces”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an appeal for calm and urged settlers to enable the Israeli military and security forces to concentrate on identifying the gunman who killed the two Israelis earlier.
Israeli settlers had called for a march on Hawara to “take revenge” for the deadly attack on Hillel and Yagel Yaniv, who lived in Har Bracha, 1.2 miles south of Nablus.
A Palestinian man rammed the brothers’ car and then shot them both multiple times as they drove through Hawara. So far, no militant group from Palestine has claimed responsibility for this attack, but the gunman was reportedly wearing a shirt with the insignia of the Nablus-based Lions’ Den.
Members of the group were targeted in an Israeli raid in Nablus last Wednesday, which killed 11 Palestinians, including several civilians – the deadliest such action in the West Bank since 2005.
Israeli forces have been conducting waves of search, arrest, and intelligence-gathering raids in the nearby city of Jenin, claiming that they were attempting to halt a spate of deadly Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
More than 60 Palestinians, both militants and civilians, have been killed by Israeli forces since the beginning of the year. On the Israeli side, 14 people have been killed in attacks, all of whom were civilians with the exception of a paramilitary police officer.
More than 600,000 Jews live in 140 settlers built since Israel’s 1967 Middle East war occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The majority of the international community believes the settlements are illegal under international law, though Israel disagrees.
