The Israeli military shot and killed a Palestinian man yesterday during a raid in the West Bank, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.
The military, which has been carrying out nightly raids in the territory since early last year, said soldiers operating in the Qalandiya refugee camp were being struck by rocks and cement blocks from rooftops above, and responded with live fire.
The ministry identified the man killed as Samir Aslan, 41.
Photo: AFP
His death came a day after two Palestinians were killed in separate incidents in the West Bank on Wednesday, one during an Israeli military arrest raid in the territory’s north, and another after stabbing and wounding an Israeli man in a southern settlement.
The raids began in the spring last year after a spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis killed 19 people.
Israel says they are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks.
The Palestinians see them as further entrenchment of Israel’s 55-year, open-ended occupation of land they seek for their future state.
The raids sent tensions soaring and prompted another wave of Palestinian attacks in the fall that killed 10 Israelis.
Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank and east Jerusalem last year, making it the deadliest year since 2004.
AFGHAN CHILD: A court battle is ongoing over if the toddler can stay with Joshua Mast and his wife, who wanted ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ for her Major Joshua Mast, a US Marine whose adoption of an Afghan war orphan has spurred a years-long legal battle, is to remain on active duty after a three-member panel of Marines on Tuesday found that while he acted in a way unbecoming of an officer to bring home the baby girl, it did not warrant his separation from the military. Lawyers for the Marine Corps argued that Mast abused his position, disregarded orders of his superiors, mishandled classified information and improperly used a government computer in his fight over the child who was found orphaned on the battlefield in rural Afghanistan
EYEING THE US ELECTION: Analysts say that Pyongyang would likely leverage its enlarged nuclear arsenal for concessions after a new US administration is inaugurated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned again that he could use nuclear weapons in potential conflicts with South Korea and the US, as he accused them of provoking North Korea and raising animosities on the Korean Peninsula, state media reported yesterday. Kim has issued threats to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively numerous times, but his latest warning came as experts said that North Korea could ramp up hostilities ahead of next month’s US presidential election. In a Monday speech at a university named after him, the Kim Jong-un National Defense University, he said that North Korea “will without hesitation use all its attack
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is in “excellent health” and fit for the presidency, according to a medical report published by the White House on Saturday as she challenged her rival, former US president Donald Trump, to publish his own health records. “Vice President Harris remains in excellent health,” her physician Joshua Simmons said in the report, adding that she “possesses the physical and mental resiliency required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.” Speaking to reporters ahead of a trip to North Carolina, Harris called Trump’s unwillingness to publish his records “a further example
RUSSIAN INPUT: Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov called Washington’s actions in Asia ‘destructive,’ accusing it of being the reason for the ‘militarization’ of Japan The US is concerned about China’s “increasingly dangerous and unlawful” activities in the disputed South China Sea, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told ASEAN leaders yesterday during an annual summit, and pledged that Washington would continue to uphold freedom of navigation in the region. The 10-member ASEAN meeting with Blinken followed a series of confrontations at sea between China and ASEAN members Philippines and Vietnam. “We are very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes,” said Blinken, who