2 Palestinians Shot Dead in West Bank

Image by Getty Images
Israeli security forces shot dead two Palestinian assailants in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, police and the army said, as a month-long spate of stabbing attacks showed no signs of abating.
The latest assaults, like other recent stabbings, took place in Hebron, a city in the West Bank, signaling that violence was shifting to that territory from Israel and Jerusalem, where police have set up roadblocks in Palestinian neighborhoods that were home to many of the alleged assailants.
A paramilitary policeman shot dead a Palestinian in Hebron who had stabbed and lightly wounded a soldier, police said. Hours later, at a nearby location, a second Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli troops when he tried to knife a soldier, who was unhurt, the army said.
This month’s wave of violence, the worst since the 2014 Gaza war, has in part been spurred by religious and political tensions over a Jerusalem site sacred to both Muslims and Jews.
Increased visitor numbers by religious Jews to Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque plaza – Islam’s holiest site outside Saudi Arabia and revered in Judaism as the location of two destroyed biblical temples – have spurred Palestinian allegations that Israel is violating a “status quo” by which Jewish prayer there is banned.
Israel has pledged to abide by the long-standing arrangement at the site in Jerusalem’s walled Old City and has said false allegations by Palestinian officials, echoed in Arab social media, that it intends to encroach on Muslim rights of worship have been inciting violence.
Since the latest wave of unrest began on Oct. 1, at least 62 Palestinians have been shot dead by Israelis in the West Bank and in Gaza. Of those, 35 were assailants armed mainly with knives and in some cases with guns, Israel said, while others were shot during anti-Israeli protests. Many were teenagers.
Eleven Israelis have been killed in stabbings and shootings.
BODIES WITHHELD
The Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center, a Palestinian institution based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, said information from families and the Palestinian Health Ministry showed Israel was holding 29 bodies of Palestinians killed in the violence, including at least 17 from Hebron.
Asked about the figures, the Israeli military declined comment, referring queries to the Prime Minister’s Office, where a spokesman could not immediately be reached.
Hebron’s Palestinian governor, Kamel Hmeid, said the failure to release bodies to the families was stoking anger in the city, where stone-throwing anti-Israeli protests have been raging.
“Everyone is awaiting the handover of bodies … Organisers of protests have made clear they will not rest before the bodies of martyrs are released to their families (for burial),” Hmeid said.
Amnesty International says some of the killings of Palestinians were unjustified and that Israeli forces were using “extreme and unlawful measures.” Israel says it has a right to use lethal force to stop attempts to kill its citizens.
A U.S.-promoted Jordanian plan announced on Saturday to set up cameras to monitor the flashpoint al-Aqsa mosque compound has not been implemented. Palestinians have voiced concern that Israel would use such footage to arrest suspected militants.
Palestinians are deeply frustrated by the failure of numerous rounds of peace talks to secure them an independent state in territories, including the West Bank, that Israel captured in a 1967 war. The last phase of negotiations collapsed in 2014.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 2
Fast Forward A Palestinian man in Philadelphia served kosher bagels for decades. Then customers found his Facebook profile.
- 3
Opinion Is this new documentary giving voice to American Jewish anguish — or simply stoking fear?
- 4
Fast Forward Trump’s antisemitism chief shares ‘Jew card’ post from white supremacist
In Case You Missed It
-
Books Why Jews were like everyone else — only more so — during slavery and the Civil War
-
Culture How two Jewish names — Kohen and Mira — are dividing red and blue states
-
Yiddish לאָמיר פֿאַרגלײַכן צוויי רוסישע נוסחאָות פֿון באַשעוויסעס ראָמאַן „דער שאַרלאַטאַן“Comparing two Russian versions of Bashevis’s novel ‘The Charlatan’
איין איבערזעצונג קלינגט אויף רוסיש גאַנץ נאַטירלעך, און די צווייטע — נישט. וואָס טוט זיך דאָ?
-
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.