A Palestinian was killed on Friday (April 1st) by Israeli gunfire in Hebron, in the southern occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported.
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Clashes erupted in the center of Hebron, a powder keg in the West Bank, between Palestinian residents and Israeli forces, noted an AFP journalist.
This incident comes as deadly violence over the past ten days in the occupied West Bank and Israel has raised fears of an escalation.
The 29-year-old Palestinian was killed "
with live ammunition
", the health ministry said in a short statement.
He was identified as Ahmad al-Atrash, a former detainee who spent six years in an Israeli prison, according to the official Palestinian agency Wafa.
Asked by AFP, the Israeli army did not comment immediately.
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Some 1,000 Jewish settlers live under strong Israeli military protection in the center of Hebron, a city populated by 200,000 Palestinians and where the Cave of the Patriarchs is located, also called Ibrahim Mosque, a holy place for the three monotheistic religions.
Clashes with the Israeli army break out regularly in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 by the Jewish state, on the sidelines of demonstrations against Israeli colonization or arrests in Palestinian localities by Israeli security forces.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said it treated 70 people injured in clashes with the Israeli army on Thursday in the Nablus area in the northern West Bank.
11 deaths since March 22
Thursday, two Palestinians were killed during an operation of the Israeli army in Jenin (North).
It was aimed, according to the army, to arrest “
suspects
” linked to an anti-Israeli attack carried out near Tel Aviv on Tuesday by a Palestinian and which left five people dead.
This attack brought to 11 the number of people killed in anti-Israeli attacks since March 22, with, unprecedentedly, some carried out by assailants linked to the jihadist group Islamic State (IS).
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The Israeli army has since deployed reinforcements in the West Bank and multiplied the arrests, in particular of members of the family of the Palestinian assailant.
About 475,000 Israelis live in the West Bank in settlements deemed illegal under international law.
More than 2.8 million Palestinians also live in this territory.
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