A Palestinian man was shot dead in clashes with the Israeli army on Saturday during a raid in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The man was shot in the head after fighting broke out during an Israeli army incursion into the village of Burqin in the northern West Bank, it said.

The health ministry identified the dead man as Ahmad Abu Obeid, 19.

The army did not comment on the death, but said in a statement it had entered the village, near the city of Nablus, in an attempt to find suspects in the shooting dead of an Israeli rabbi in January.

Raziel Shevah, a 35-year-old rabbi, was shot dead near Havat Gilad, a wildcat Jewish settlement outpost in the Nablus area, on January 9.

The army has been since launched multiple violent raids to search for the suspected killer, 22-year-old Ahmed Jarrar.

Jarrar is the son of Nasser Jarrar, a member of Islamist militant movement Hamas who was killed while fighting Israeli forces during the second Palestinian intifada.

The army did not say if he had been caught during the raid.</s>The Israeli prime minister will formally approve the construction of a settlement at the Havat Gilad outpost in the West Bank, following the murder of a local rabbi, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.

"The government will today regularize the status of Havat Gilad to allow the continuance of normal life there," he said during a weekly cabinet meeting.

The ministers are set to decide on the creation of a "new community" on the site of the outpost with some 50 families living there and provide the settlement with building permits and state money.

However, they failed to catch 22-year-old Ahmed Jarrar, the man suspected of organizing the attack.

The operation continued earlier this week in the village of Burquin, where Israeli troops killed a 19-year-old teenager amid clashes with locals.

READ MORE: Palestine Liberation Organization Calls for Cutting Ties With Israel

During the rabbi's funeral, Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett said that the only revenge for the murder was the construction of settlements, while Netanyahu underlined the same policy during his Sunday speech.

"Anyone who thinks that through the abominable murder of a resident of Havat Gilad, a father of six, they would break our spirits… is making a bitter mistake," he said.

Israeli settlements on the West Bank are illegal under international law as Palestinians regard the territory as part of their future state. Israel, for its part, differentiates between the settlements it has approved and not.

The latter are designated as outposts and are usually populated by religious nationalists, who consider the whole territory on the West Bank as part of Israel.</s>A Palestinian has stabbed an Israeli man to death at a bus stop near a West Bank settlement before fleeing the scene, officials said.

A Palestinian has stabbed an Israeli man to death at a bus stop near a West Bank settlement before fleeing the scene, officials said.

The Israeli military said an army officer chased the assailant after the stabbing at a bus stop near the entrance to Ariel, hitting the attacker with his vehicle, but the culprit managed to get away.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the Israeli man died as a result of the stabbing wounds shortly thereafter. Israeli media reported that the Palestinian was armed with two knives, and identified the stabbing victim as a father of four. Channel 2 News aired footage from the scene showing the attacker crossing a busy road and then lunging at the man, taking him by surprise.

The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered his condolences and said security forces are “currently chasing the murderers”. Last month, an Israeli was killed in a drive-by shooting near a settlement outpost in the West Bank.

Palestinians seek the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 war, as part of their future state. Most of the international community views Israeli settlements there as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel said the fate of settlements must be resolved through negotiations. There has been a spike in Palestinian violence since US president Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital on December 6. The move sparked outrage across the Muslim world, where it was seen as the US taking Israel’s side on the most contentious issue of the decades-old conflict.

Palestinian demonstrators have clashed with Israeli troops in the West Bank and along the Gaza-Israeli border, and 19 Palestinians have been killed in the violence since Mr Trump’s announcement.</s>Rescue workers clean the scene following an incident at the entrance to the Jewish settlement of Ariel in the occupied West Bank, February 5, 2018. REUTERS/Yossi Zeliger

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian stabbed and killed an Israeli man on Monday in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, Israeli officials said.

The incident occurred in Ariel, one of the largest Israeli settlements in the territory. An army officer who spotted the assailant hit him with his vehicle, but the attacker escaped and troops launched a search, the military said.

Israeli media said the assailant held Israeli citizenship, but the military and Shin Bet internal security service would not confirm his identity.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israeli had died of his wounds, making the announcement at a weekly meeting of legislators from his right-wing Likud party.

Tensions have risen in the West Bank since U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on Dec. 6, breaking with decades of U.S. policy that the city’s status must be decided in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

East Jerusalem was captured by Israel in a 1967 war, and Palestinians want it for the capital of a future state. Israel considers all of Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally.</s>Israeli forces rounded up 21 Palestinians in overnight raids across the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the Israeli military on Monday.

The individuals were arrested for "suspected involvement in terrorist activities," the army said in a statement without elaborating.

According to Palestinian figures, roughly 6,400 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, including dozens of women and 300 minors.

Some 450 of these are under what Israel calls "administrative detention" where they face neither trial or charge.

Twelve members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, which in theory serves as a Palestinian parliament, also remain in Israeli custody.

The Israeli army frequently carries out sweeping arrest campaigns across the occupied West Bank under the pretext of searching for "wanted" Palestinians.</s>Israel says it will legalise West Bank settlement after rabbi shot dead in isolated outpost

Israel says it plans to legalise an isolated West Bank outpost in response to the murder of one of its residents in a shooting last month.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his weekly Cabinet meeting his Government would legalise Havat Gilad to "allow the continuing of normal life there".

"Whoever thought that through the reprehensible murder of a resident of Havat Gilad, a father of six, that our spirit can be broken and we can be weakened, is making a bitter mistake," Mr Netanyahu said.

Last month, Rabbi Raziel Shevah, 35, was shot dead from a passing vehicle as he drove near his home in the unauthorised settlement outpost near the Palestinian city of Nablus. The Israeli military is still searching the area for suspects.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem in the 1967 war, areas the Palestinians want for a future state.

Last month, Israel's Parliament passed an amendment that would make it harder for it to cede control over parts of Jerusalem in any peace deal with the Palestinians, who condemned the move as undermining any chance to revive talks on statehood.

Israel has established about 120 West Bank settlements, which it considers legal. In addition, about 100 settlement outposts have been erected without official approval but Israel generally tolerates them. Most of the international community considers all Jewish West Bank settlements illegal.

Havat Gilad, a community of a few hundred Israelis, is among these rogue outposts and is located deep inside the West Bank, away from areas Israel expects to keep under any peace deal with the Palestinians. Critics see their expansion as complicating peace efforts.

The anti-settlement group Peace Now called the effort to legalise the outpost a "cynical exploitation of the murder".

Meanwhile, Israel on Sunday demolished a two-classroom school in a Bedouin community in the West Bank, saying the EU-funded structure was built illegally without proper permits and that it was in a precarious condition. The school served nearly 30 third- and fourth-grade students who were moved to a nearby guesthouse and barbershop to continue classes.

A statement from Cogat, the Israeli defence body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs, said the demolition came after a challenge in Israel's Supreme Court was overruled.

Roberto Valent, an official with the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, said he was "deeply concerned" by the demolition. In a statement, he said the Israeli-issued permits were "nearly impossible to obtain" and that demolitions such as Sunday's, among other Israeli policies, "have created a coercive environment that violates the human rights of residents and generates a risk of forcible transfer".

The demolition took place near the settlement of Maaleh Adumim, in the 60 per cent of the West Bank known as Area C that remains under full Israeli control. Israel has imposed severe restrictions on Palestinian development in this area, home to dozens of Israeli settlements.

The EU funds the construction of many homes, schools and other structures in the area and says the projects are needed for humanitarian reasons and economic development.

Israel said any assistance to Palestinians in Area C must be coordinated with authorities.</s>Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said ministers would grant formal authorisation Sunday to a rogue West Bank settlement in response to last month’s murder of a rabbi who lived there.

The move comes with European nations voicing increasing concern over settlement growth in the occupied Palestinian territory, but with US President Donald Trump largely refraining from such criticism — what many Israelis view as a green light.

Israeli authorities have advanced plans for thousands of new settlement homes in recent months. Cabinet votes to authorise a pre-existing outpost such as Sunday’s are relatively rare.

“The government will today regularise the status of Havat Gilad to allow the continuance of normal life there,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, referring to the wildcat settlement.

The official cabinet agenda says ministers will hear a motion to designate the 15-year-old outpost as a “new community” which will have the necessary building permits and a state budget.

It says that about 40 families live in the outpost, but envisages its enlargement.

The following week, Israeli troops searching for his attackers shot dead what they described as a Palestinian suspect in the city of Jenin in the northern West Bank, about 35 kilometres (22 miles) north of Havat Gilad.

However, they did not catch the man considered to have led the attack on Shevach, 22-year-old Ahmed Jarrar.

The manhunt continued on Saturday with a raid on the village of Burqin. In clashes that erupted there, soldiers shot dead a teenager identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Ahmad Abu Obeid, 19.

“Yesterday our forces were again in action in an effort to apprehend the last of the assassins and their accomplices in the murder of Rabbi Shevach,” Netanyahu told cabinet ministers and media.

“We will not rest until we bring them to justice,” he pledged. “And we shall bring them all to justice.”

At Shevach’s funeral, there were calls for “revenge” during a speech by Education Minister Naftali Bennett of the far-right Jewish Home party.

Bennett responded by saying that the only revenge should be in building more settlements, and Netanyahu said Sunday that was one of the planks of his policy.

“Anyone who thinks that through the abominable murder of a resident of Havat Gilad, a father of six, they would break our spirits and weaken us is making a bitter mistake,” he said.

Settlement watchdog Peace Now, however, said that retroactively granting legal status to Havat Gilad, built without submitting development plans or obtaining construction permits, was “cynical exploitation” of Shevach’s death.

Israeli settlements are seen as illegal under international law and major obstacles to peace as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.

But Israel differentiates between settlements it has approved and those it has not.

Those without approval are referred to as outposts and tend to be populated by hardline religious nationalists who see the entire West Bank as part of Israel.

Past attempts by Israeli authorities to dismantle Havat Gilad have led to clashes with settlers there.

Israel has several times given retroactive approval to outposts, and last year work began on the first completely new government-sanctioned settlement built in the Palestinian territories in some 25 years.

Israel faced sharp criticism from the administration of former US president Barack Obama over settlement construction, but that has not been the case with Trump’s White House and Israeli officials have sought to take advantage of this.

European nations and the United Nations maintain their strong opposition to settlement building.</s>An Israeli settler has been stabbed and killed in a knife attack outside an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank.

The attack in the district of Salfit on Monday afternoon, on the main road near the Ariel settlement, was reportedly carried out by a Palestinian man who fled the scene, according to Israeli media.

Israeli security forces chased the man who drove away in a vehicle but later left the car and ran away from an army vehicle chasing him. He was still at large late on Monday.

Israel's Magen David Adom ambulance service said on its Twitter account the settler was a 30-year-old man with a stab wound to his upper body. He later died in a hospital.

Israeli media identified him as Itamar Ben Gal, 29, a rabbi from the illegal settlement of Har Bracha.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to "bring to justice" the Palestinian man.

"I put my trust in the security forces who do the hardest work against these disgraceful attacks," Netanyahu said at the beginning of a Likud party meeting, the Times of Israel reported.

Israeli forces have dispersed to nearby towns in search of the attacker.

Bethlehem-based Maan News agency said settlers in the area began throwing rocks at Palestinian vehicles passing by.

Hamas, in the Gaza Strip, welcomed the stabbing attack.

"It is proof that the al-Quds Intifada continues," its armed wing said in a statement on Twitter, referencing an uprising that came out of 2015 protests commonly referred to by Palestinians as the "Intifada of the knives".

A similar attack to Monday's occurred last month, when a 35-year-old settler, also a rabbi, was shot dead near the illegal Israeli settlement outpost of Havat Gilad. Since then, the Israeli army carried out at least three raids in Palestinian villages near the West Bank city of Nablus.

Accompanied by bulldozers and drones during their incursions, the Israeli army is continuing its search for Ahmad Jarrar, a 22-year-old Palestinian who is wanted for his alleged role in the killing.

His cousin of the same name was killed on January 18 after a 10-hour military operation, in what Palestinians believe was a case of mistaken identity.

Israeli forces declared Jenin, where Jarrar's village is located, a closed military zone and imposed a curfew on several neighbourhoods.

On Sunday, a 19-year-old Palestinian man succumbed to his wounds after being shot during a raid there the night before.

Israeli settlements violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states an occupying power cannot transfer its population into the territory it occupies.</s>BURQIN, West Bank - Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian teenager during an arrest raid in the village of Burqin in the West Bank, Palestinian health officials said on Saturday.



A Reuters witness said about 200 Palestinians were throwing stones at Israeli military vehicles when a shot was heard, adding that a wounded person was then carried to a car.



Israel's military, which said it was checking the report, said its forces had been searching in Burqin for suspects involved in the fatal drive-by shooting of an Israeli rabbi from nearby Havat Gilad on January 9.



Israeli forces in the adjacent city of Jenin last month shot and killed a Palestinian gunman whom they suspected of involvement in the rabbi's shooting.



The Palestinian Health Ministry said the teenager killed on Saturday was 19 years old, while the hospital in Jenin where he was taken said he had been shot in the head.

 

 Read more</s>An Israeli man has been stabbed to death outside a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, in what Israeli police say was a terrorist attack.

The victim, Itamar Ben Gal, was attacked at a bus stop near Ariel.

Israeli security forces are searching for the assailant, who they identified as a Palestinian man.

It comes a day after Israel retroactively legalised an unauthorised settlement outpost in response to the killing of a resident last month.

Forces are still searching for the suspected Palestinian gunman who killed Rabbi Raziel Shevach, a father of six, as he drove along a highway near his home at Havat Gilad on 9 January.

Israeli media said Mr Ben Gal was a 29-year-old father of four from the settlement of Har Bracha. He was reportedly a teacher at a yeshiva, or religious school.

CCTV footage of Monday’s attack shows Mr Ben Gal waiting on a roadside. Another man is then seen crossing the road and stabbing him in the chest.

The Israeli military said a soldier had pursued the suspect in his vehicle and hit him after witnessing the incident, but that he managed to escape.
An Israeli rabbi is stabbed to death by an Israeli Arab outside the Israeli-occupied West Bank settlement of Ariel.