Fighting erupted in a refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank Wednesday between Palestinians and their own security forces, Palestinian authorities said, leaving a 25-year-old Palestinian dead.
The unrest underscored the challenges facing Palestinian police trying to impose order in the restive territory.
Elsewhere in the occupied territory, Israeli security forces shot a Palestinian man who they said tried to ram his car into soldiers at a military checkpoint, hitting and lightly wounding a soldier, authorities said. It was the latest incident in one of the West Bank’s most violent phases in years.
Palestinian police entered the refugee camp in Tulkarem after residents appealed to the Palestinian Authority to remove metal street barriers set up by local militants that were blocking access to homes and schools, Palestinian security spokesperson Talal Dweikat said.
The angled metal barricades are a staple in the militarised refugee camps of the northern West Bank, meant to deter Israeli military vehicles during the frequent army raids.
After police cleared the streets, Dweikat said Palestinian militants opened fire in front of the Tulkarem Muqata, the authority headquarters. Police responded “to control the security situation,” he added.
A Palestinian security officer in Tulkarem, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to brief the media, said that an uninvolved Palestinian resident was caught in the crossfire and killed.