JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israeli forces killed a Palestinian in predawn clashes in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday, Palestinian medics said. The Israeli army said he was armed and shooting at soldiers, something the Palestinians denied.
Witnesses said the clashes erupted when Israeli forces arrived to guard Jewish worshippers visiting Joseph’s Tomb, a Jewish shrine that has been a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Four Palestinians were shot and one of them, an 18-year-old, was killed, the Palestine Red Crescent said.
At least 30 Palestinians were wounded in all.
Later in the day, in a separate development, Israeli security forces raided seven non-governmental organisations in the West Bank, confiscating computers and equipment before sealing off the entrances, Palestinian witnesses and officials said.
This followed a decision by Israel to designate the groups as terrorist organisations, accusing them of funnelling donor aid to Palestinian militants, a move that has drawn criticism from the United Nations and human rights watchdogs.
The designation was ratified on Wednesday.
Nine European Union states have said they would continue working with the groups, citing a lack of evidence for the Israeli accusation.
Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz reiterated Israel’s position that the organisations had operated undercover to serve the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which has carried out deadly attacks on Israelis and is on U.S.
and EU terrorism blacklists.
“They also assist in raising funds for the terrorist organisation via a variety of methods that include forgery and fraud,” Gantz said.
Hussein Al-Sheikh, a senior official in the Palestinian Authority, said on Twitter that the “storming of civil work institutions … is a dangerous escalation and is an attempt to silence the voice of truth and justice”.
“We will appeal to all official international bodies and human rights institutions to intervene immediately to condemn this occupier behaviour and place pressure on them to reopen the institutions and to be able to exercise their activities freely,” Sheikh said.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Additional reporting and writing by Henriette Chacar and Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Gerry Doyle and Alison Williams)
