Israeli forces on Saturday shot dead a gunman who opened fire at a checkpoint north of Jerusalem and slightly wounded a security guard, police said, as the attack was claimed by a Palestinian armed group.
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“A suspect opened fire on the security forces operating at the border crossing [Qalandiya]The Israeli police said in a statement.
“The security forces operating at the border crossing countered the threat by fighting back and neutralizing the terrorist. The terrorist’s death was later confirmed at the scene,” the source added.
The Qalandiya checkpoint is the main Palestinian border crossing between annexed East Jerusalem and Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
The official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, identified the person killed as Ishaq al-Ajlouni, aged 17 or 18, from the Kufr Aqab neighborhood north of the checkpoint.
The Martyrs’ Brigades of Al-Aqsa, the armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, said in a statement that its “heroic fighters” were […] could attack the occupying soldiers directly [israéliens] at the Qalandiya checkpoint”.
The shooting follows a string of deaths in the West Bank this week, including four Israelis killed in a Palestinian attack and ten Palestinians killed in an Israeli raid followed by a drone strike.
In addition, a 39-year-old succumbed to his injuries on Saturday after being “shot down by the occupier”. [Israël] Friday at dawn in Nablus,” in the northern West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
When asked by the AFP news agency, the Israeli army could not comment on the circumstances surrounding the shooting.
At least 176 Palestinians, 25 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian have been killed in violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the beginning of the year, according to an AFP tally compiled from official Israeli and Palestinian sources.
These statistics include combatants and civilians, including minors, on the Palestinian side and mostly civilians, including minors, and three members of the Arab minority on the Israeli side.