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Unrest Grows in West Bank in Deadliest Year Since 2015

Israeli security forces shot dead two Palestinians on Friday during a raid in the northern West Bank, after a week of intensifying unrest and shootings.

Members of a Palestinian militia walked through the West Bank town of Jenin during the funeral of a Palestinian man who was killed in an Israeli raid.Credit...Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

JERUSALEM — Violence and unrest continued on Friday in pockets of the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, as tensions rise sharply in what has been the deadliest year in the West Bank since 2015.

Set against the backdrop of an Israeli election campaign, the unrest capped several days of violence in Israel and the occupied territories in which two Israeli soldiers were killed in Palestinian attacks and a total of four Palestinians were killed during Israeli raids.

Israeli security forces shot dead two Palestinians during an early morning raid in Jenin, in the northern West Bank.

Israeli settlers also entered Huwara, a Palestinian town that Israelis regularly pass through to reach nearby settlements, vandalizing property and clashing with residents for the second day in a row. Settler leaders said they were responding to Palestinian stone throwers.

The incidents followed riots and confrontations between Palestinians and Israelis on Thursday night and early Friday morning in Jerusalem, where unrest was reported for the second night in a row.

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Palestinian men, left, confronting Israeli settlers who entered the Palestinian town of Huwara on Thursday.Credit...Oren Ziv/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

There was also a standoff on Friday between security forces from the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank, and supporters of Hamas, the Islamist militant group, in Hebron, in the south of the territory.

Several Palestinian neighborhoods in East Jerusalem were also locked down this week as Israeli police searched for one of the assailants involved in the killing of the soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians went on strike in both Jerusalem and the West Bank to protest those closures.

The events have compounded a year of unrest in the West Bank that has begun to draw comparisons with the early phases of the two Palestinian intifadas, or uprisings, in the late 1980s and early 2000s. More than 100 Palestinians and at least four Israeli servicemen and police officers have been killed in the West Bank and Jerusalem since the start of year.

The violence escalated after a wave of Arab attacks, mainly inside Israel, killed 19 Israelis and foreigners between March and May. In response, the Israeli Army began an operation in the West Bank, raiding Palestinian cities on a nearly daily basis and arresting over 1,500 Palestinians.

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A Palestinian protester confronted Israeli security forces in the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday.Credit...Hazem Bader/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The campaign stopped the attacks inside Israel, but it exacerbated Palestinian anger at the 55-year occupation, leading to a rise in militant operations inside the West Bank.

Many young Palestinians are despondent about the possibility of ending the Israeli occupation through peaceful means, and they are increasingly angry at their own leadership’s failure to hold elections while achieving little that furthers the cause of Palestinian statehood.

The situation is complicated by splits within Fatah, the secular party that dominates the Palestinian Authority, as its senior members compete to succeed Mahmoud Abbas, the authority’s 87-year-old president.

Despite pressure from Israel, the authority has avoided any kind of serious intervention against the popular armed groups. Criticized for its cooperation with the Israeli security forces and widely perceived as corrupt, the authority is wary of denting its popularity further.

That has allowed for the emergence of new armed movements that operate independently of traditional Palestinian chains of command, like the Lion’s Den group in Nablus.

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Mourners attended the funeral on Wednesday of an Israeli soldier who was killed in a roadside ambush by Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank.Credit...Nir Elias/Reuters

The Israeli political opposition has attempted to use the unrest to its advantage in the campaign for parliamentary elections on Nov. 1, the fifth in less than four years.

Once again, polls suggest that there is little separating the governing coalition, led by Prime Minister Yair Lapid, and the right-wing opposition alliance led by Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister.

“Jerusalem is burning,” Mr. Netanyahu wrote on social media on Friday, calling for “a strong and stable right-wing government.”

Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right lawmaker whose support Mr. Netanyahu will likely need to form a parliamentary majority, made a campaign stop on Thursday night in Sheikh Jarrah, a particularly volatile area of East Jerusalem. For decades, settler groups have run a high-profile campaign to evict Palestinian residents from the neighborhood.

After encountering Palestinian stone-throwers in the neighborhood, Mr. Ben-Gvir pulled out his handgun and called on nearby police officers to fire at the Palestinians.

“Friends, they’re throwing rocks at us,” he said. “Shoot them.”

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Mourners at the funeral on Friday of a Palestinian man who was killed in an Israeli forces raid in Jenin.Credit...Raneen Sawafta/Reuters

Major violence flared hours later in Jenin, after Israeli forces entered the city to arrest a man accused of terrorism. Palestinian gunmen fired on the soldiers, leading to a lengthy gun battle in which two Palestinians were shot dead.

One of the dead was a medical doctor whom a Palestinian militia later claimed as its leader, posting pictures of him carrying three assault rifles. Palestinian media outlets said the doctor had been shot outside the entrance to a hospital, but the Israeli Army said he had been holding a gun.

Video from the scene showed bullets being fired from an Israeli military position in the direction of Palestinian medics who had arrived at the scene to help the wounded. The video also showed Palestinian gunmen taking up a position next to the medics and their ambulance, and using the vehicle as cover.

Hiba Yazbek contributed reporting.

Patrick Kingsley is the Jerusalem bureau chief, covering Israel and the occupied territories. He has reported from more than 40 countries, written two books and previously covered migration and the Middle East for The Guardian. More about Patrick Kingsley

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 7 of the New York edition with the headline: Unrest Shakes West Bank and Jerusalem. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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