The violence comes in the first weeks of Israel’s new far-right government, which has promised to take a tough line against Palestinians
, and as security forces step up arrest raids of wanted militants in the West Bank. Israel says the raids — begun in the wake of a series of deadly Palestinian attacks last spring — are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future assaults.
A day after a raid in January on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank that killed 10 Palestinians, a Palestinian shot and killed seven people outside a synagogue in east Jerusalem. Among those killed in Wednesday’s raid in Nablus were Palestinian men aged 72 and 61, and a 16-year-old boy, according to health officials. Scores of others were wounded. Various Palestinian militant groups claimed six of the dead as members. There was no immediate word on whether the others belonged to armed groups. Separately, officials said a 66-year-old man died from tear gas inhalation.
The Israeli military said it entered Nablus, the West Bank’s commercial center and a city known as a militant stronghold, to arrest three militants suspected in previous shooting attacks. The main suspect was wanted in the killing of an Israeli soldier last fall. In one emotional scene, a medic pronounced a man dead, only to notice the lifeless patient was his father. Elsewhere, an amateur video showed two men, apparently unarmed, being shot as they ran in the street. Military spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said the armed forces were looking into it.
The government is dominated by ultranationalists who have pushed for tougher action against Palestinian militants and vowed to entrench Israeli rule in the occupied West Bank, including by ramping up settlement construction on lands Palestinians seek for their future state. Israeli media have quoted top security officials as expressing concern that the harder line could lead to even more violence as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan approaches.
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