A Palestinian man was killed and seven others were wounded in separate incidents of Israeli military violence in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
"Samir Aouni Harbi Aslan, 41, was killed after he was wounded by a bullet of the Israeli occupation army that penetrated his chest during the aggression on Qalandia camp" for Palestinian refugees near Ramallah, the ministry said.
The Israeli military, on the other hand, said troops fired on people who "hurled rocks and blocks from the rooftops aiming at soldiers operating beneath."
Earlier, at least 18 people were arrested in overnight raids across the West Bank, the Palestinian Prisoners' Club advocacy group said.
Mohammed Saed, a representative of community leaders at the Qalandia camp, said Aslan was shot when Israeli forces raided his home.
"He was killed in his house but he was not involved in the confrontation; he was just trying to defend his son" from arrest, Saed told the Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Aslan is the third Palestinian killed in the West Bank in 24 hours, and the seventh since the start of the year.
Seven other Palestinians were also injured Thursday by Israeli army fire in the West Bank city of Nablus.
A ministry statement said its medics treated seven people injured by fire from Israeli forces.
Meanwhile, the official Palestine TV said that the Israeli army detained four Palestinians during its military operation in the old town of Nablus.
Earlier in the day, Israeli forces pushed into Nablus from several entrances amid gunfire, witnesses said.
Israeli forces have repeatedly carried out raids into Nablus in search of members of an armed group known as the Lions’ Den, which emerged in the occupied West Bank last year.
Israel blames the Lions’ Den group for attacks on Israeli targets, including the death of an Israeli soldier in October last year.
On Wednesday, an Israeli civilian shot dead a 19-year-old Palestinian who had allegedly knifed an Israeli near a settlement in the southern West Bank.
The incident came hours after Israeli troops killed another Palestinian man in a firefight during an incursion by Israeli forces into the northern city of Nablus.
A surge in bloodshed last year saw at least 26 Israelis and 200 Palestinians killed across Israel and the West Bank, according to an AFP tally.
More than 150 of the fatalities were in the West Bank.
After a series of attacks targeting Israelis last March and April, Israeli forces stepped up raids in the northern cities of Jenin and Nablus, bastions of armed Palestinian factions in the West Bank.
