Israeli forces kill Palestinian man, injure child in West Bank raids

Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man and wounded two people including a child during raids in the occupied West Bank city of Jericho and adjacent refugee camps, Palestinian health authorities said on Tuesday.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the incident, the latest in a series during a surge in violence in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza, with frequent raids by Israeli forces, as well as rampages by violent Jewish settlers and street attacks by Palestinians on Israelis.

The dead man, identified as 44-year-old Shadi Issa Galaita, had been standing outside his house in Jericho city, watching troops as they carried out a raid but had not been involved in the events his uncle Shafiq Jalayta said.

“He was standing at the door, watching. My son asked him to go inside but he told him that he is far from what’s happening,” he told Reuters. “A sniper shot him from above, in his chest, they shot three bullets but only one hit him, and he died on the spot, he didn’t do anything, nothing.”

The Palestinian news agency WAFA said the two wounded, including a child, were hit by bullets during a separate incident in the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp, just outside Jericho, where local residents said youths threw stones at the soldiers and there was a limited exchange of fire.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces since the start of the war in Gaza last October. Most have been armed militants but stone throwing youths and uninvolved civilians have also been killed.