Israeli forces kill Palestinian in West Bank raid: ministry

Israeli forces killed a Palestinian man during an overnight raid on Ramallah, seat of the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, the territory’s health ministry said Thursday.

The military said its forces had targeted money exchange shops in Ramallah and other parts of the West Bank, accusing the businesses of providing funds to Palestinian militant groups.

An AFP journalist saw Palestinians hurl Molotov cocktails at the forces in Ramallah. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its medics treated eight people for gunshot wounds.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and regularly carries out raids there, though they are far less common in the territory’s institutional heart Ramallah.

The Red Crescent said medics also treated people wounded by Israeli forces across the West Bank, in the governorates of Hebron, Jericho, Jenin and Nablus.

The military said troops shot at “assailants (who) hurled explosive devices, Molotov cocktails, rocks, and opened fire at Israeli security forces” across the territory.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s office said “millions of shekels destined for Hamas and Islamic Jihad” had been seized during the raids.

According to the ministry’s statement, Gallant said multiple such shops “will be declared terrorist organisations due to their activity of transferring funds for terrorist purposes”.

In Ramallah, the AFP journalist saw a damaged exchange shop with smashed glass across the floor.

Official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported Israeli forces “stormed a number of money exchange shops, seized their contents and detained a number of their owners”.

Surging violence has seen 522 Palestinians killed in the West Bank this year by Israeli security forces and settlers, according to a health ministry toll, 314 of them since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7.