NABLUS: Israeli troops Sunday shot dead a Palestinian man at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus, less than 48 hours after a female protester died after being tear-gassed.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said Mohammed Daraghme, in his early twenties, was killed at around 8:00 am (0600 GMT) at the Hamra checkpoint northeast of Nablus.
Initial media reports said Daraghme had tried to stab soldiers at the checkpoint — a claim denied by Palestinian sources.
The Israeli military confirmed that Daraghme was not armed with a knife, but said he entered an unauthorized lane in the checkpoint and was believed to have been holding a bottle.
"He was holding a glass bottle and the soldiers were probably scared he was going to try to stab them," a military spokeswoman told AFP.
She could not confirm whether the bottle was broken, or if Daraghme had explicitly threatened the soldiers.
"He approached them, he was standing a few meters (yards) from them," she said. "They asked him to stop, he didn’t answer."
The incident was under investigation, she added, and many details about the incident remained unclear, including how many soldiers opened fire.
Daraghme, from the village of Tubas, north of Nablus, died at the checkpoint after sustaining bullet wounds to his chest, hand and leg, sources at the Tubas hospital where he was taken told AFP.
Palestinian security sources said Daraghme was attempting to pass through the checkpoint on his way to work at a West Bank settlement on Sunday morning and got into an altercation with troops when they refused him passage.
No soldiers were wounded in the incident, and the checkpoint was closed afterwards.
Michelle Bubis, a spokeswoman for Israeli human rights group B’tselem, said the details of the incident were still unclear.
"We have eyewitness accounts but we’re still checking into it. B’tselem demands a military police investigation and is itself checking into the incident," she told AFP.
On Saturday evening, a Palestinian man was arrested by Israeli troops near the settlement of Gush Etzion, south of Bethlehem, after reportedly trying to stab two female soldiers.
The Israeli military said no one was injured in that incident.
Meanwhile, the lawyer of the family of a Palestinian woman who died after being tear-gassed by Israeli troops at a West Bank protest accused the military on Sunday of a cover-up.
"Once again the army is covering up the actions of its men, instead of apologizing and conducting a serious inquiry," Michael Sfard told Israel’s army radio after the military announced an investigation into the death of Jawaher Abu Rahma.
The 36-year-old died in hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah after collapsing on Friday during a protest against the Israeli separation barrier in the nearby village of Bilin, hospital staff said.
Sfard accused the army of "using a massive amount of gas" during the protest.
The Israeli military said that an "investigation has been opened to determine the exact cause of death," and that it had "unsuccessfully contacted the Palestinian Authority to obtain a medical report."
On Friday, the military said it had used unspecified "means of dispersing demonstrations" against some 250 violent protesters taking part in a weekly rally against the fence near the West Bank village of Bilin.
Photos showed clouds of tear gas billowing around stone-throwing protesters.
Abu Rahma’s death has been condemned as a "war crime" by the Palestinians.
"We condemn this abominable crime by the Israeli occupation army in Bilin against people taking part in a peaceful demonstration and consider it an Israeli war crime against our people," Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP on Saturday.
Nearly 200 demonstrators gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday to protest against Abu Rahma’s death. A dozen people were arrested, an AFP correspondent reported.
Overnight on Saturday, another 11 people were arrested after demonstrating outside the US ambassador’s residence in the city of Herzliya, just north of Tel Aviv.
"There was a local disturbance about 12:30am (2230 GMT Saturday) outside the ambassador’s residence," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP. "Apparently the group had thrown two empty gas grenades at the residence."
Rosenfeld said 11 people were arrested, including a female German citizen, but said he had no information on whether the incident was a protest.
Israeli military radio said the incident was a demonstration linked to Abu Rahma’s death.
Israel says the projected 723 kilometers (454 miles) of steel and concrete walls, fences and barbed wire is needed for security. The Palestinians view it as a land grab that undermines their promised state.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a non-binding ruling in 2004 calling for parts of the barrier inside the West Bank to be torn down and for further construction in the territory to cease.
