Israeli troops kill Palestinian in raid on Jenin refugee camp

The Israeli army raided the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank on Tuesday, killing a Palestinian man. Mohammed Ballas / AP Photo

NABLUS, WEST BANK // Israeli troops on Tuesday shot and fatally wounded a suspected Palestinian militant during a raid on his home in a West Bank refugee camp, the army and Palestinian security officials said.

“The wanted suspect was injured, evacuated by military forces for further treatment and later died of his wounds in an Israeli hospital,” a military statement said.

Palestinian security sources named the dead man as Islam Al Tubasi, 21, and said he was shot as troops stormed his home in the Jenin refugee camp, north of the West Bank city of Nablus.

The sources had no information on whether he was engaged in militant activity but said that his brother, who had been active in Islamic Jihad, was shot dead by troops in 2006.

The army statement said that as soldiers attempted to arrest Al Tubasi, a crowd gathered and began attacking them with gunfire, petrol bombs and improvised explosives.

“Amid the turmoil, the target of the activity was identified attempting to flee the area. The security forces managed to detain the suspect using live fire,” the army said.

It said troops also shot and wounded one of the rioters, who was taken to an Israeli hospital.

“The continuing terrorist threat from the Jenin Area requires that the IDF maintains operational access in the area,” the army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, said.

Al Tubasi was the fourth Palestinian killed in the West Bank since Israel and Palestinians resumed peace talks in July.

Regular meetings between negotiators from both sides as part of US-brokered peace talks have continued despite the clashes.

The negotiations resumed after a three-year stalemate over Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in 1967 and where the Palestinians hope to set up an independent state.

On August 26, Israeli security forces shot dead three Palestinians and wounded 19 during fierce clashes that lasted for hours in the Qalandiya camp, between Ramallah and Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

The violence erupted when a crowd of about 1,500 spotted a border police squad raiding the home of an alleged militant in the camp and attacked them with rocks and fire bombs.

The deaths lead to the postponement of a session of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks that had been scheduled for that afternoon, a Palestinian official said.

The week before, troops shot dead one man and wounded two during an operation to arrest an alleged militant Palestinian militant in Jenin camp.

Last week soldiers and Palestinians exchanged fire at the Balata camp, in Nablus, as troops escorted Jewish worshippers to a to a flashpoint shrine there.

There were no fatalities in that incident, but four Palestinians were wounded, two by live fire and two by rubber-coated bullets, Palestinian medical sources said.

The military said that one of those shot was suspected of firing at soldiers.

* Agence France-Presse wit additional reporting by Reuters