Israeli security forces kill Palestinian gunman who opened fire at military checkpoint

By ISABEL DEBRE
Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — A Palestinian assailant opened fire at an Israeli military checkpoint in the West Bank on Saturday before being shot and killed, Israeli police said. Elsewhere in the occupied territory, settlers rampaged through a Palestinian village, throwing stones and setting fire to homes.

The Palestinian gunman approached Israeli troops stationed at the Qalandiya checkpoint outside Jerusalem early in the morning, pulled out an M16 rifle and opened fire, the Israeli police said.

Israeli security forces said they shot back, killing the suspected assailant. According to the Israeli rescue service, two security guards in their 20s were hospitalized with minor wounds — at least one from bullet fragments. There was no immediate word on the attacker’s identity.

Later on Saturday, residents of the Palestinian village of Umm Safa said that at least 50 Israeli settlers armed with rifles and flammable liquid stormed through the streets and tried to set fire to at least five homes with people inside.

Palestinian rescue teams said they evacuated small children who were suffocating and trapped inside a burning house.

Some settlers also opened fire at civilians and medics. A local station, Palestine TV, said settlers fired at Mohammed Radi, its correspondent covering the attacks, shattering his camera. The Palestinian Red Crescent said that one of its medics was wounded by gunfire.

Another two medics were wounded when settlers threw a large rock at an ambulance, which crashed through the windshield.

Israeli settlers also shot and killed a horse, said resident Ibrahim Ebiat. “This is pure terror,” he said. “People are terrified and angry.”

Young Palestinians threw threw rocks at Israeli security forces who opened fire and unleashed tear gas at them, reports said.

The events capped a bloody week in the West Bank that left 16 Palestinians and four Israelis dead.

An hourslong gun battle between Israeli security forces and Palestinian militants in the northern Jenin refugee camp killed seven Palestinians and wounded eight Israeli soldiers earlier this week. Two Palestinian gunmen then killed four Israeli civilians before being shot and killed.

Then, a rare Israeli airstrike by a pilotless drone killed three Palestinian militants in a car. Israeli settler attacks in revenge for the deadly Palestinian shooting left one Palestinian dead, many wounded and a trail of destruction through Palestinian towns.

On Saturday, Palestinian health officials also said that a 39-year-old man, Tariq Idris, died of wounds suffered in confrontations with Israeli security forces in the northern city of Nablus the day before. The Israeli military said it had raided Nablus to arrest three suspected Palestinian militants and fired at residents who shot at them and threw Molotov cocktails.

The spiraling violence has increased pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, with its hard-liners calling for a broad military operation against Palestinian militants, as well as on the Palestinian Authority, which has come under criticism for failing to protect Palestinian civilians.

This year has been one of the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank in years. At least 137 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank so far in 2023, according to a tally by The Associated Press, nearly half of them affiliated with militant groups. As of Saturday, 24 people on the Israeli side have been killed in Palestinian attacks, most of them civilians.

Israel says most of the Palestinian dead this year were militants, but stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for a future independent state.