NABLUS - Israeli forces yesterday shot dead a Palestinian militant in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian officials and a relative of the deceased said, as the army reported “counterterrorism activity” in the area.

Amir Ahmed Mohammed Khalifa, 27, was killed during a raid on Zawata, a town west of the city of Nablus, the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement.

“He was shot in the head and back with two bullets fired by the Israeli occupation soldiers during their aggression on the town of Zawata,” it said.

The Israeli army said a suspect had opened fire on troops early yesterday during “counter-terrorism activity” in Nablus, in the northern West Bank.

“Soldiers responded with live fire and hits were identified,” the army said, but did not specify whether it was the same incident in which Khalifa was killed.

Khalifa, who lived in Ain Beit Ilma refugee camp near Nablus, was “wanted by Israeli forces for two years and had refused to surrender”, a family member, who requested anonymity for security reasons, told AFP.

Khalifa was a member of Al-Aqsa Matryrs Brigades, said the militant group, which is linked to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah movement, in a statement on social media.

Posters calling him “a martyr, a hero”, were distributed in Nablus by members of Fatah hours after his killing, witnesses told AFP.

Since early last year, deadly violence has rocked the northern West Bank, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups where Israel has stepped up military raids, often in crowded neighbourhoods.

The area has seen a spate of attacks on Israelis, as well as attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinian communities.

Violence this year linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has killed at least 213 Palestinians, 28 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources on both sides.

They include, on the Palestinian side, combatants as well as civilians and, on the Israeli side, three members of the Arab minority.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.

Excluding annexed east Jerusalem, the territory is home to nearly three million Palestinians and around 490,000 Israelis who live in settlements considered illegal under international law. - Nampa/AFP