Israeli army: Settlers attacked; Palestinian shot dead

A Jewish West Bank settler fatally shot a 47-year-old Palestinian villager today in a clash that occurred under disputed circumstances.

Later in the day, the Israeli military said it attacked four Hamas military posts in the northern Gaza Strip in response to mortar fire from the area.

In the West Bank incident, the military said a group of some 20 settlers were hiking through the Palestinian village of Qusra, southeast of the city of Nablus, when they were attacked by stone throwers and two were lightly wounded.

One of the settlers then opened fire, striking a stone thrower. The settlers then entrenched themselves in a cave near the village until Israeli forces evacuated them, it said.
 

The military said medical teams rushed to the scene to try to save the Palestinian.

The Palestinians, however, said that 47-year-old Mahmoud Odeh was shot while working on his land in the northern West Bank village.

Palestinian Authority official Ghassan Daghlas said settlers confronted Odeh and ordered him to move. When he refused, one of them shot him in the chest, Daghlas said.

The military would not say where the shooter was, saying only that the incident was being investigated.

The northern West Bank is an occasional flashpoint between settlers and Palestinians. Several isolated hard-line settlements are in the area, situated near Palestinian villages and Nablus.

Odeh became the latest casualty in an intermittent two- year wave of violence.

Since September 2015, Palestinians have killed more than 50 Israelis, two visiting Americans and a British tourist in stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks. Israeli forces have killed more than 260 Palestinians in that time. Israel says most of them were attackers and that others died in clashes with Israeli forces.

The frequency and intensity of attacks has lessened in the past year.

Along Israel's southern border with Gaza, meanwhile, the military said several mortar shells were fired from Gaza across the border at an Israeli military post. There were no injuries.

Shortly afterward, Israeli tanks and aircraft targeted four Hamas military posts in Gaza. There was no immediate claim for the mortar attack, but Israel holds Hamas, the de facto power in Gaza, responsible for all fire emanating from the area.