Palestinian officials reported Friday that two people have been killed and a third wounded after Israeli security forces opened fire on them in response to an alleged earlier assault near a checkpoint in the town of Huwara in the northern West Bank region of Nablus.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement that a group of its soldiers opened fire on two «suspicious» vehicles after one of them passed near the checkpoint firing at Israeli troops.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said that one of the fatalities, aged 47, was shot in the abdomen, chest and head, while the other, aged 35, died as a result of a gunshot wound to the heart. The wounded man is in stable condition at Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, Wafa news agency reported.
The attack occurred about an hour after the Israeli army announced that it was opening several entrances to Nablus, a region that has been under a tight military cordon since October 12, reports the Israeli newspaper ‘The Times of Israel’.
«Following an assessment of the situation, it was decided to change the method of restricting movement in the Nablus area and some entrances to the city will be opened tonight,» an IDF spokesman had warned in a statement sent shortly after midnight.
However, it is unknown whether the Huwara checkpoint was among those entrances to the city included in the decision to ease the blockade of the city.
The decision to lift the movement restriction has come after Jerusalem claimed to have made «significant gains» against the Palestinian armed group ‘Lion’s Den’ in the West Bank.
Israeli troops carried out an operation in Nablus on Tuesday, after which five Palestinians were killed and 20 others were wounded, three of them seriously.
The IDF later explained that they had raided an apartment which they attribute to the Lion’s Den armed group, killing the alleged leader of the group «and other armed men» and destroying a bomb factory.
