The Israeli army says Palestinian gunmen shot and killed an Israeli civilian Tuesday near the entrance to a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank
JERUSALEM — Palestinian gunmen shot and killed an Israeli civilian on Tuesday near the entrance to a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army said.
The Israeli military said in a statement that a man was shot near the settlement of Hermesh, in the northern West Bank. It said troops were pursuing suspected gunmen.
Paramedics said they treated a man in his 30s in a serious condition with a gunshot wound. He was taken to a local hospital, which later pronounced him dead.
The incident was the latest in more than a year-long surge of violence that has wracked the West Bank under Israel’s most right-wing government in history. During that time, Israel has expanded near-nightly military raids throughout the area in response to an increase in Palestinian attacks.
At least 117 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, with nearly half of them members of armed militant groups, according to an Associated Press tally. But stone-throwing youths and people uninvolved in violence have also been killed. The Israeli army said the number of Palestinian militants killed is much higher.
Meanwhile, Palestinian attacks targeting Israelis have killed at least 22 people.
Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem, along with the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. Palestinians seek these territories for a future state.
Some 700,000 Israelis now live in settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Most of the international community considers these settlements illegal or obstacles to peace.
On Monday, Jewish settlers erected a religious school in a dismantled outpost in the northern West Bank after Israel’s government lifted a ban on settlements in several areas evacuated as part of Israel’s 2005 withdrawal act from the Gaza Strip. In March, Israel repealed the act which barred Israelis from entering the areas.
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