West Bank raid: Israeli forces kill Palestinian man

Israeli forces killed 28-year-old Abdul Karim Muhammad Khader Suleiman during a raid in Aqraba in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, with Palestinian and Israeli accounts sharply differing over the circumstances.

The Palestinian health ministry said Suleiman was shot and killed on Tuesday morning in the northern West Bank town and that Israeli authorities were withholding his body.

The Israeli military said soldiers went to Aqraba to question a person it described as a terrorist. It said he threw a Molotov cocktail and an improvised explosive device at troops, causing no injuries, before soldiers surrounded and entered a building and killed him after encountering him holding a knife that he intended to use against them.

Aqraba mayor Salah al-Din Jaber said 300 to 400 soldiers raided the town overnight, declared it a closed military zone and surrounded the house. He said Suleiman's wife and mother left first, while Suleiman stayed inside.

Jaber said Israeli forces later arrested Suleiman and executed him outside the house, seized his body, and that he had been unarmed. He said there had been no exchange of fire. An eyewitness and the mayor said Israeli forces fired projectiles at the house and brought in military bulldozers.

AFP footage from the scene showed holes in the exterior wall of the targeted house and rubble below.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. Violence in the territory has increased since the Hamas October 7, 2023 attack sparked the war in Gaza. An AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry data says Israeli forces or settlers have killed at least 1,108 Palestinians in the West Bank, including civilians and militants, since the start of the Gaza war. Israeli figures show at least 48 Israelis, including civilians and security personnel, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the same period.