Israeli forces on Sunday killed a Palestinian linked to an armed faction in Nablus, a major city in the northern occupied West Bank which is the scene of a wave of violence, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.
A Palestinian was "
shot dead by Israeli occupying forces in Nablus
", the ministry said in a statement.
Read alsoTwo Palestinians and an Israeli officer killed in clashes in the West Bank
The Israeli army, for its part, said it opened fire in the direction of a “
suspect
” while carrying out a routine operation.
“
Israeli soldiers identified armed suspects in a vehicle and on a motorbike traveling near Nablus.
Soldiers responded by opening fire on these suspects, some of whom were shot
,” the army told AFP.
The Palestinian ministry identified the young man killed as Said al-Koni, a member of a local faction called "
the lions of the den
", said in a press release this new armed group which brings together young people from Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Fatah but also others without affiliation.
The leader of this coalition Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, a young fighter nicknamed the "
lion of Nablus
", was killed in August in an operation by Israeli forces.
Last week, after the arrest by the Palestinian police of Mussab Shtayyeh, a young local leader of the Islamists of Hamas, hundreds of young people in Nablus, including members of the "
lions
", attacked the Palestinian forces accused of "
coordination
" with the Israeli army.
“
The young generation that he brought together is not crazy.
These are young people who grew up under the occupation, who only know raids and injustice and all this makes them deeply angry
,” Alaa al-Nabulsi, Ibrahim al’s father, told AFP at the time. -Nabulsi.
On Saturday, a Palestinian suspected of an attack was killed near Nablus by Israeli forces who are on high alert ahead of the major Jewish holidays which begin Sunday evening with Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.
Dozens of Palestinians, including members of armed groups, have been killed in the occupied West Bank in Israeli army operations that have escalated in the wake of a series of anti-Israeli attacks from March.