BICOM

The Israeli Border Police has begun investigating the death of a Palestinian man in the West Bank on Saturday.

The Border Police yesterday summoned residents of the Adei Ad settlement for questioning after an armed resident reportedly shot dead Hamdi Naasan, near the Ramallah-area village of Mughayir on Saturday.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said that Naasan was shot by one of the settlers but residents from Adei Ad say a confrontation with Palestinians was triggered when a teenager, walking near the outskirts of Mughayir, was attacked. The teenager was quoted in The Jerusalem Post saying: “Suddenly I saw three Arabs, who ambushed me, beat me and tried to drag me to their village …. I managed to escape to Adei Ad and on the way, I understood I had been stabbed in my hand.” He said civilians from the settlement came out to help and they then followed three Palestinians to Mughayir where they say they were confronted by Palestinians.

Faraj Naasan, the uncle of the Palestinian man who was killed, told Kan News that the allegation that a Palestinian had stabbed the teenager was fabricated in order to justify the shooting that caused the death of his nephew. He said: “There were three or four settlers on the hill. They fired very intensively. It was like a battlefield. The army was there and instead of protecting us, they shot tear gas at us. Police officers were there too, but they just filmed.”

Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt said in a Tweet: “I condemn yesterday’s violence in the West Bank in which a Palestinian man was killed. My thoughts are with his family. Those responsible must be brought to justice.”

An Israeli court on Sunday extended the remand of a Jewish settler who was arrested on suspicion of attacking and lightly wounding two Palestinians with an axe in the northern West Bank. Yosef Nahman Meir, from the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Emmanuel, was apprehended by IDF soldiers on Saturday in a field near the village of Dir Istiya, just south of Emmanuel. The two men were treated for light injuries.