ISRAELI FORCES CARRIED out a manhunt today in the occupied West Bank after a Jewish settlement guard was shot dead in an attack claimed by a Palestinian armed group, in the latest wave of violence.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, one of the main militant groups active in the West Bank, claimed responsibility for the murder which, along with the killing of a Palestinian, brought a deadly conclusion to Friday’s clashes at Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound.

The army said the guard was on duty at the entrance to the Ariel settlement on Friday night when attackers opened fire. Emergency services confirmed the man, in his 20s, had died from his wounds.

Soldiers today stepped up their presence particularly at the entrance to the neighbouring Palestinian community of Salfit, an army statement said.

It added that security forces had made arrests and seized weapons at Bruqin, also nearby, and at Balata refugee camp near Nablus.

The group which today said it carried out the attack is the armed wing of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah faction.

“We claim responsibility for the heroic operation in the colony of Ariel in which a Zionist officer was killed, in response to violations committed by the occupation government in Jerusalem,” the group said.

‘Riot’

Late yesterday, the Palestinian health ministry said a Palestinian in his 20s had been shot and killed during a pre-dawn Israeli army operation in the northern West Bank town of Azzun.

An army spokesman told AFP the operation was linked to the manhunt for the Ariel attackers.

Palestinian news agency Wafa identified the man as 27-year-old Yahya Adwan.

Forty-two people had earlier been hurt in clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, at the Al-Aqsa site venerated by Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem’s Old City.

The Al-Aqsa unrest came on the last Friday of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan, and brought to nearly 300 the number of Palestinians hurt over a two-week period in clashes at the site.

Dozens of people including armed members of Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades gathered today for Adwan’s funeral in Azzun, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the Ariel settlement.

Palestinians and Israeli soldiers clashed after the funeral procession. The Palestinian Red Crescent said three Palestinians were hospitalised after being hit in the legs by live fire.

The Israeli army said “dozens of Palestinians instigated a violent riot adjacent to the town of Azzun” and attacked soldiers, “who responded with riot dispersal means and live fire”.

Weeks of violence

The Al-Aqsa mosque compound is in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War, along with the West Bank, and later annexed, in a move not recognised by most of the international community.

Israel has since built settlements in the West Bank that are considered illegal under international law but are home to around 475,000 Israelis.

The Al-Aqsa tensions came against a backdrop of wider violence since March 22 in Israel and the West Bank.

Thirteen Israelis, including an Arab-Israeli police officer, and two Ukrainians have been killed in separate attacks. Two of the deadly attacks were carried out in the Tel Aviv area.

A total of 27 Palestinians and three Israeli Arabs have died during the same period, among them perpetrators of attacks and those killed by Israeli security forces in West Bank operations.

The fresh unrest comes ahead of the end of Ramadan early next week.

Violence in east Jerusalem has raised fears of another armed conflict similar to an 11-day war last year between Israel and Hamas, triggered in part by similar unrest at Al-Aqsa.