Palestinian said killed in West Bank clashes with Israeli troops

A Palestinian man was killed by Israeli fire on Friday during clashes with troops in the central West Bank, the health ministry in Ramallah said.

The Palestinian ministry said 33-year-old Othman Ahmed Ladadwa was shot dead by IDF soldiers in the village of Mazara al-Qibliya. It said eight other Palestinians were injured in the clashes. Two of them were in a serious condition including a man who was shot in the head.

Israel said three border police officers were lightly injured dispersing a “violent riot” northwest of Ramallah. A statement from police said hundreds of Palestinians set off fireworks and hurled rocks at Israeli troops, who “responded with riot dispersal means, and fired in accordance with standard operation procedures.”

According to witnesses, the clashes broke out when Israeli settlers came to visit a site near the village and local Palestinians threw stones at them.

Israeli forces then intervened and fired both tear gas and ammunition at the Palestinians, the witnesses said.

The West Bank has seen a rise in tensions in recent weeks. Earlier this month, a Palestinian terrorist shot dead two Israeli colleagues at an industrial zone adjacent to a settlement in the northern West Bank. The suspect remains on the run.

On Monday, a Palestinian stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier in the southern West Bank city of Hebron before being shot dead by troops.

Friday’s clashes at Mazara al-Qibliya came amid a deadly flareup in violence along the Gaza border. Thousands of Palestinians gathered at five locations along the border, burning tires and throwing rocks and firebombs at Israeli troops who responded with tear gas and occasional live fire.

Five protesters were killed and another 170 were injured in the clashes with IDF troops, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said. One of them was killed when a hand grenade he was holding exploded prematurely, witnesses said.

The Israeli army did not comment on the deaths but said some 16,000 “demonstrators and rioters” were gathered along the border, with some setting tires alight and hurling grenades. A spokesman said troops responded with “riot dispersal means.”

The bloodshed is likely to complicate the mission of Egyptian mediators, who intensified their shuttle diplomacy to achieve calm and prevent a full-blown conflict between Gaza’s Hamas rulers and Israel.

On Wednesday, Egyptian intelligence officials met representatives of Palestinian factions in Gaza. Loay Qarouti of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command said the mediators asked them “to protect the lives of protesters and minimize losses among them.”

Egypt wants calm restored to achieve national Palestinian reconciliation between Hamas, which seized Gaza in 2007, and the West Bank-based administration of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

But Hamas, which seeks to destroy Israel, wants a full lifting of a crippling blockade Israel and Egypt impose on Gaza to prevent the ruling terrorist group from importing weaponry.