Israeli forces kill Palestinian suspected over West Bank shooting

Sunday’s shooting north of Jerusalem was the most serious attack in the West Bank since October 7. (AP)
Updated 13 December 2018
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Israeli forces kill Palestinian suspected over West Bank shooting

  • The statement did not say if Barghouti was suspected of being the gunman or an accomplice

JERUSALEM: Israeli security forces on Wednesday shot dead a Palestinian suspected in the shooting of seven Israelis including a pregnant woman whose baby later died.
The Shin Bet security service said in a statement that a suspect named as Salah Omar Barghouti, 29, who tried to evade capture during a raid on a West Bank village was shot and killed.
The statement did not say if Barghouti was suspected of being the gunman or an accomplice. It said an unspecified number of other suspects were arrested.
The Shin Bet announcement came hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that those who carried out Sunday’s drive-by shooting near a Jewish settlement in the Israeli-occupied West bank would be found and brought to justice.
He spoke shortly after a Jerusalem hospital announced the death of the baby boy, delivered by emergency caesarean section after his mother was shot. She was 30-weeks pregnant.
“We lost a few hours ago a newborn baby, four days old,” Netanyahu said in an address to foreign media.
“We will find the killers, we haven’t stopped searching. We will find them and bring them to justice,” he said.
The newborn was buried late Wednesday on Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives, opposite the walled Old City.
US peace envoy Jason Greenblatt said in a Twitter message that the death was “absolutely heart-breaking.”
“My thoughts & prayers are with the family of the baby who died today as a result of the despicable terror attack on Sunday,” he wrote. “This is an attack Hamas praised as ‘heroic’.”
“The world must strongly condemn this terror and not remain silent,” Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, said in a statement.
The Hamas movement, which runs the Gaza Strip, saluted the shooting and in a statement said it proved “resistance” was still alive in the West Bank.
Following the attack the 21-year-old mother was reported as stable, but the Shaare Zedek hospital said Monday that her baby had taken a turn for the worse.
The child died “despite the medical efforts of the premature baby unit to save him,” the hospital said on Wednesday.
Palestinian attacks against Israelis occur sporadically in the West Bank.
Sunday’s shooting north of Jerusalem was the most serious attack in the West Bank since October 7, when Palestinian Ashraf Naalwa shot two Israelis dead in an industrial zone for a nearby settlement.


Iran FM criticizes Israel for ‘doctrine of domination’

Updated 8 sec ago
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Iran FM criticizes Israel for ‘doctrine of domination’

  • Doctrine allows Israel to expand its military arsenal while pressuring other countries in the region to disarm
  • His remarks came a day after renewed nuclear talks with Washington in Oman
DOHA: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday criticized what he said was a “doctrine of domination” that allows Israel to expand its military arsenal while pressuring other countries in the region to disarm.
His remarks came a day after renewed nuclear talks with Washington, with previous talks collapsing when Israel launched an unprecedented bombing campaign against Iran last June that triggered a 12-day war.
Araghchi was speaking at the Al Jazeera Forum conference in Qatar but made no reference to Friday’s talks with the United States.
“Israel’s expansionist project requires that neighboring countries be weakened: militarily, technologically, economically and socially,” Araghchi said.
“Under this project Israel is free to expand its military arsenal without limits ... Yet other countries are demanded to disarm. Others are pressured to reduce defensive capacity. Others are punished for scientific progress,” he added.
“This is a doctrine of domination.”
During the 12-day war Israel targeted senior Iranian military officials, nuclear scientists and sites as well as residential areas, with the US later launching its own attacks on key nuclear facilities.
Iran responded at the time with drone and missile attacks on Israel, as well as by targeting the largest US military base in the Middle East, located in Qatar.
On Friday, Araghchi led the Iranian delegation in indirect nuclear talks with US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in Muscat.
The top Iranian diplomat later described the atmosphere as having been “very positive,” while US President Donald Trump said the talks were “very good,” with both sides agreeing to proceed with further negotiations.
The talks followed threats from Washington and its recent deployment of an aircraft carrier group to the region following Iran’s deadly crackdown on anti-government protests last month.
The United States has sought to address Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for militant groups in the region — issues which Israel has pushed to include in the talks, according to media reports.
Tehran has repeatedly rejected expanding the scope of negotiations beyond the nuclear issue.