Israeli Settler Kills Palestinian Who Military Says Was Planning Attack

File photo: Israeli settlers gather near the settlement of Bat Ayin in the occupied West Bank on 21 June 2021. AFP
File photo: Israeli settlers gather near the settlement of Bat Ayin in the occupied West Bank on 21 June 2021. AFP
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Israeli Settler Kills Palestinian Who Military Says Was Planning Attack

File photo: Israeli settlers gather near the settlement of Bat Ayin in the occupied West Bank on 21 June 2021. AFP
File photo: Israeli settlers gather near the settlement of Bat Ayin in the occupied West Bank on 21 June 2021. AFP

An Israeli settler shot dead a Palestinian man who the Israeli military said was armed with knives and explosive devices on Friday near a city in the northern occupied West Bank.

The Israeli military said separately its forces raided a town near the Palestinian hub city of Ramallah overnight and opened fire on a crowd throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, hitting one person, without specifying whether they were killed or wounded, Reuters said.

Tension in the West Bank has been surging for months, with the near-daily military raids and escalating settler violence in the West Bank amid a spate of attacks by Palestinians.

Palestinian officials confirmed a 21-year-old man was killed by an Israeli settler near the city of Qalqilya on Friday but did not immediately note any casualties from the raid in Ni'lin.

Relatives of the man killed told Reuters he was religious but were not aware of any membership in Palestinian groups. They said the military was still withholding his body.

On Thursday, a Hamas gunman opened fire in Tel Aviv, wounding three people, one of them critically, before being killed by police and passersby. The group said the attack was a response to Israel's killing of three Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank earlier that day.

During the operation in the town of Ni'lin on Friday, the Israeli military said it arrested two relatives of the Hamas gunman and mapped out his home for demolition.

Israel says such demolitions are meant to deter potential Palestinian assailants. Palestinians and rights groups condemn the policy as collective punishment.

Over the past year, Israeli forces have made thousands of arrests in the West Bank and killed more than 200 Palestinians, including fighters and civilians. More than 40 Israelis and foreign nationals have died in attacks by Palestinians over the same period.

Palestinians seek to establish a state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, areas Israel captured in a 1967 Middle East war. The expansion of Jewish settlements and deadlocked political progress have increasingly dimmed statehood prospects.



Iran FM to Visit Syria, Türkiye as Tehran, Moscow Back Damascus Regime against Opposition Advances

 Opposition fighters step on a picture of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo, Syria, late Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP)
Opposition fighters step on a picture of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo, Syria, late Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP)
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Iran FM to Visit Syria, Türkiye as Tehran, Moscow Back Damascus Regime against Opposition Advances

 Opposition fighters step on a picture of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo, Syria, late Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP)
Opposition fighters step on a picture of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo, Syria, late Friday, Nov. 29, 2024. (AP)

Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araqchi will visit Damascus on Sunday, before visiting Türkiye as part of a regional tour, foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei told state media on Saturday.

Earlier, Araqchi and his Russian counterpart voiced support for Syria on during a major attack by opposition groups, Iranian state media reported.  

Araqchi told Russia's Sergei Lavrov in a phone call that the attacks were part of an Israeli-US plan to destabilize the region, state media said.  

According to a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry about the call, both sides "expressed extreme concern about the dangerous escalation of the situation in Syria due to the terrorist offensive by armed groups in the Aleppo and Idlib provinces".  

The ministers agreed on the need to intensify joint efforts aimed at stabilizing the situation in Syria.  

Iran's foreign ministry also condemned what it called "aggression by terrorist elements" against its consulate in Syria's city of Aleppo during the current opposition advances, Iranian state media reported.  

"The consul-general and all members of the consulate of Iran in Aleppo are in good health," spokesperson Baghaei told state media.  

Earlier on Saturday, Russia's Lavrov spoke on the matter with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan.  

For his part, Fidan spoke by phone with Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on Saturday to discuss the situation in Syria, Turkish Foreign Ministry sources said.  

He also spoke with Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati.