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After a series of strikes inside Israel provoked five days of army raids in the unlawfully occupied West Bank, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian in the city of Nablus.
“During the onslaught on the city of Nablus, the young man, Muhammad Hassan Muhammad Assaf, 34, was shot in the chest by the Israeli occupation force,” the Palestinian health ministry announced on Wednesday.
According to the government, Assaf was the legal consultant to the Palestinian Authority’s committee against the wall and settlements.
In Nablus and the adjoining town of Beita, the Palestinian Red Crescent recorded 31 persons wounded, including 10 by live fire, six by rubber-coated bullets, and 13 by tear gas.
According to the medical organisation, the Israeli army raided Beita and Lubban ash-Sharqiya, south of Nablus, at around 5 a.m. local time. At around 8:30 a.m. local time, the army stormed the villages of Urif and Balata, east of Nablus, where an exchange of gunfire was reported.
“On the eve of Passover, we will not tolerate such an assault on a location that is holy to us,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett was quoted as saying. Passover is a prominent Jewish holiday that commemorates the Israelites’ exodus from slavery in Egypt.
The army made no immediate response to Assaf’s death. It had previously stated that troops in Nablus and other West Bank cities were “performing counter-terrorist operations.”
After four assaults in Israel in the last three weeks left 14 people dead, including a shooting in Tel Aviv’s central district last week, Israel has increased raids and arrests throughout the West Bank. The soldiers killed 16 Palestinians in the same time period, including assailants.