Israeli gunfire kills Palestinian man in occupied West Bank

It was not immediately clear if man took part in protests marking Yasser Arafat’s 15th death anniversary.

Occupied West Bank
Relatives of a Palestinian man killed grieve during his funeral in al-Arroub refugee camp on Monday [Mussa Qawasma/Reuters]

Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man during confrontations with stone-throwing protesters in the occupied West Bank on Monday.

The 22-year-old man was shot in the chest in al-Arroub refugee camp, near Hebron city, Palestinian health officials said.

It was not immediately clear if he had taken part in protests marking the 15th anniversary of the death of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said troops were sent into Al-Arroub in pursuit of local Palestinians who had thrown rocks at cars on a nearby road, and opened fire when confronted by “a large number of rioters”, some wielding petrol bombs.

The fatal shooting was under investigation, she added.

The West Bank, among territories where Palestinians seek statehood, has seen simmering violence since US-brokered peace talks with Israel stalled in 2014.

Medics also reported Israeli use of live fire in clashes at Fawwar, south of Hebron, on Monday.

Hamas, the leaders of the Gaza Strip, prohibited a Fatah event to mark the death of Arafat in the coastal Palestinian enclave.

Hamas and Fatah, which Arafat led, have been deeply divided since the 2007 near civil war in the Gaza Strip.

Arafat’s death

Arafat died on November 11, 2004, at a French military hospital after suffering a sudden illness following three years of Israeli military siege around his Ramallah headquarters.

The official cause of death was a large haemorrhagic stroke, but no autopsy was carried out and senior Palestinian leaders withheld his medical records.

Swiss scientists who conducted tests on samples taken from Arafat’s body found at least 18 times the normal levels of radioactive polonium in his remains.

A 108-page report by the University Centre of Legal Medicine in Lausanne, obtained by Al Jazeera, found unnaturally high levels of polonium in Arafat’s ribs and pelvis, and in soil stained with his decaying organs.

Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies