RAMALLAH: The Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry said that Israeli forces killed a man in the northern occupied West Bank on Friday.
“Bahaa Abdel-Rahman Rashid (38 years old) was killed by Israeli fire in the town of Odala, south of Nablus,” the Health Ministry said in a statement.
Shortly before, the Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams handled the case of a man “who suffered a critical head injury during clashes in the town of Odala near Nablus, and CPR is currently being performed on him.”
The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident.
Witness and Odala resident Muhammad Al-Kharouf said that Israeli troops were patrolling in Odala and threw tear gas canisters at men who were exiting the local mosque for Friday prayer.
Rashid was killed by live fire in the clashes that followed, added Kharouf, who had been inside the mosque with him.
The Israeli military said on Friday it had completed a two-week counterterrorism operation in the northern West Bank during which it killed six militants, and questioned dozens of suspects.
It said that Rashid was not among the six militants killed over the past two weeks.
Dozens of men, including Rashid’s father, gathered at the nearby city of Nablus’ Rafidia Hospital to bid him goodbye on Friday, a journalist reported.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war.
It has not ceased despite the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas that came into effect in October.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian Health Ministry figures.