Palestinian man killed and 13 injured in Israeli raid in West Bank, say Palestinian officials | CNN
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A Palestinian man was killed and 13 were injured in an Israeli raid in Nablus early Monday, Palestinian health officials said, in what Israeli authorities said was an operation to arrest suspects in the fatal shooting of an Israeli soldier last year.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said Amir Ihab Bustami, 21, “was shot by the Israeli occupation soldiers and killed at dawn today in Nablus.”
Six people were wounded by live bullets during the raid in Nablus and seven others were injured “as a result of the army’s pursuit of them,” the Palestinian Red Crescent said. The agency said one person was hospitalized, and that they had also handled 75 cases of tear gas inhalation.
The Israeli military said the overnight raid was in response to the killing of Ido Baruch in an attack near the settlement of Shavei Shomron in the occupied West Bank on October 11, 2022.
“[Israeli forces] apprehended the assailants Obkamel Guri and Asama Tuille, from Nablus, who carried out the shooting attack during which Staff Sergeant Ido Baruch was killed,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement on Monday. “The forces also apprehended three additional suspects who were with the assailants.”
The Israeli forces exchanged fire with the suspects and confiscated two rifles at an apartment in Nablus, the IDF said, adding that two of the suspects were injured during the raid.
Lion’s Den, a Palestinian militant group that emerged in Nablus last year, claimed responsibility for the killing of Baruch. The group put out a statement Monday saying it had lured Israeli soldiers into an ambush in Nablus and killed them, but there was no evidence to support that claim. The IDF said no Israeli injuries were reported in the raid.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported that Israeli forces “surrounded one of the residential buildings” in Nablus and heavy gunfire and an explosion were heard.
Separately, the Israeli military launched airstrikes in Gaza, targeting “an underground complex” belonging to Hamas for manufacturing rockets, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement early Monday. The airstrikes came after a rocket was launched from Gaza into Israel on Saturday, which the IDF said was intercepted.
Hamas confirmed in a statement that one of its sites was hit in West Gaza on Monday. Israeli warplanes “launched about 10 air raids targeting a site of the resistance,” al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said in a statement early Monday, adding that there were no casualties.
Following the strikes, four rockets were launched from Gaza into Israel, according to a later statement by the IDF that said it struck Hamas military posts in response.
