Palestinian killed after wounding Israeli guard at West Bank settlement: military
By Eli Berlzon KARMEI TZUR, West Bank (Reuters) - A Palestinian assailant was shot dead on Wednesday after stabbing a security guard at the entrance to a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli military said. The civilian guard, stationed at the Karmei Tzur settlement north of the city of Hebron, was slightly wounded. Another security guard shot and killed the attacker, the military said in a statement. Tensions have risen in the West Bank since U.S. President Donald Trump's Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, overturning decades of U.S. policy that its status should be decided in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Late on Tuesday, Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian during a raid in the West Bank city of Nablus that led to confrontation with residents, Palestinian health officials said. Khaled Taeh, the 22-year-old Palestinian killed during the operation, was buried on Wednesday. Around 5,000 people attended his funeral procession, which began in his neighborhood east of the city and ended in a cemetery in south Nablus. Many waved Palestinian flags and banners of different political factions. In a statement, the military said troops had been searching in Nablus for an assailant who fatally stabbed Rabbi Itamar Ben-Gal, 29, at the entrance to the Jewish settlement of Ariel in the West Bank on Monday. Ben-Gal was buried on Tuesday in the Har Bracha settlement where he lived. Ben-Gal's alleged attacker was not apprehended in the Nablus operation, during which about 500 Palestinians hurled rocks, fire bombs and explosive devices and fired live rounds at the soldiers, the military said. The troops responded with warning shots in the air, the statement added. Also on Tuesday, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian gunman in the West Bank village of Yamoun and said he was the head of a militant cell responsible for an ambush in which a Jewish settler was shot dead on Jan. 9. Israel had been looking for the final member of the cell which it said killed Rabbi Raziel Shevah in a drive-by shooting. Commandos had already killed one of the gunmen involved and captured another. (Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Nick Macfie and Richard Balmforth)
