2 Palestinians killed and 3 injured in confrontations with Israeli forces in West Bank
Associated Press and Los Angeles Times staff April 12, 2024
Two Palestinians were killed early Friday in confrontations with Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian medics and Israel’s military said. The militant group Hamas said one of those killed was a local commander.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, dozens of Israeli settlers rampaged through a Palestinian village, with health officials saying one Palestinian was killed and 18 wounded.
Settlers stormed the village of Al Mughayyir in search of a missing 14-year-old Israeli boy, according to rights group Yesh Din. The group said that settlers were shooting and setting houses on fire in the village.
Videos posted to X by the rights group showed dark clouds of smoke billowing from burning cars as gunshots rang out. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said eight of the wounded were shot by live fire from settlers.
Israels military said it was looking into the reports.
Tensions have soared in the West Bank, where more than 460 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis since the start of the latest Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
In Gaza, Israeli bombardments and ground offensives have killed more than 33,600 Palestinians and wounded
over
more than 76,200, the Health Ministry said Friday. The ministry doesnt differentiate between civilians and combatants in its tally, but says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead.
The war started Oct. 7 when Hamas killed about 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, in a surprise attack. Around 250 people
hostage
were also taken hostage by Palestinian militants.
Six months of fighting in Gaza have pushed the tiny Palestinian territory into a humanitarian crisis, leaving more than 1 million people on the brink of starvation.
Israel, facing mounting U.S. pressure to improve the catastrophe in Gaza, said Friday it had opened a new crossing for aid trucks into hard-hit northern Gaza. In the coming days, Israel says it will also open its port in the southern city of Ashdod for more aid shipments. Most aid is currently delivered by land from neighboring Egypt.
COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of Palestinian civilian affairs, said it has sent 1,903 trucks into Gaza over the last week, with 221 truckloads of aid reaching the north over that same timeframe.
However, the U.N. says the increase is not being felt in Gaza because difficulties persist in distributing the aid.
Its very easy for Israel to say, Weve sent you 1,000 trucks so please deliver them inside Gaza, said Jamie McGoldrick, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories.
The U.N. says aid distribution within Gaza is dangerous and mired in long holdups at inspection checkpoints. Bringing aid to the north of the territory where the U.N. says famine is near is particularly difficult, McGoldrick said, with only one or two roads north open at a given time.
Several aid organizations have suspended their convoys north after an Israeli strike on a World Central Kitchen aid mission killed seven aid workers.
Polands government on Friday called the killing of a Polish aid worker in the airstrikes a murder and demanded Israel’s support for a Polish investigation into the case.
Deputy Foreign Minister Wadysaw Teofil Bartoszewski told lawmakers in parliament that the April 1 death of Damian Sobl, 35, and six other workers of the charity who were distributing food in Gaza was shocking and disturbing.
Poland expects Israel’s full cooperation in the investigation opened by Polish prosecutors in Sobls hometown of Przemyl in Polands southeast, Bartoszewski said. The prosecutors have classified it as a murder, he said.
Israel conducted a speedy investigation and took responsibility for the deaths, but said the attack that killed the aid workers and their Palestinian driver was a tragic mistake. It shared the findings with the countries that lost citizens in the attack. The Israeli military dismissed two officers and reprimanded three others, saying they violated the armys rules of engagement.
Bartoszewski said that the dismissals and disciplinary measures were inadequate, and demanded that the case be tried by an independent court in Israel.
