Israel clamps down on West Bank after settler shot dead

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military set up roadblocks, cordoned off Palestinian villages and deployed reinforcements to the West Bank yesterday, a day after an Israeli settler was killed in a drive-by shooting by suspected Palestinian gunmen.

Israeli troops have combed villages around the city of Nablus searching for the suspects in Tuesday’s attack near the Havat Gilad settlement, a military statement said.

Raziel Shevah, 35, was shot multiple times from a passing vehicle and was hospitalised. He later died.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement vowing Israel’s security services “would do everything possible in order to apprehend the despicable murderer and the state of Israel will carry out justice against him”.

The attack took place near Havat Gilad, an unauthorised Israeli settlement outpost. The isolated community of a few hundred Israelis is located deep inside the West Bank.

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman called for it to be retroactively recognised in response to the attack. The Palestinian Islamist militant group Hamas praised the shooting as “heroic” but did not take credit for the attack.

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman responded on Twitter, writing that Shevah was “killed last night in cold blood by Palestinian terrorists. Hamas praises the killers and PA (Palestinian Authority in the West bank) laws will provide them financial rewards. Look no further to why there is no peace”.

Israel has long unsuccessfully pushed for the Palestinians to halt the “martyrs’ fund” – payments to roughly 35 000 families of Palestinians killed and wounded in the conflict with Israel, including suicide bombers and other militants, arguing that the practice encourages violence.

UN Mideast peace envoy Nickolay Mladenov condemned the killing in a tweet: “There is no justification for terror and those who condone it, praise it or glorify it. This is not the path to peace!”

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war.