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Youth Against Settlements
A young Palestinian woman shot by Israeli forces after she reportedly attempted to stab a soldier at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank has died, sources have told Al Jazeera.
The woman, named as a university student, was fatally wounded at the checkpoint near the center of Hebron around 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
“The attacker attempted to stab a soldier,” an Israeli army spokeswoman said, explaining that the soldier then fired live ammunition at her “lower extremities.”
The Hebron-based Youth Against Settlements monitoring group denied that the woman attacked the soldier with a knife and said she was shot several times.
The army said the woman was transferred to a hospital in Israel after the incident. However, a video posted by the news agency PalMedia shows the woman being left to bleed on the ground after she was shot and then being roughly pulled out of the camera frame.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Hebron resident Issa Amro identified the woman as 19-year-old Hadeel Salah al-Hashlamon.
“Now the soldiers have increased their numbers throughout the city,” said Amro, who is the coordinator of Youth Against Settlements.
According to Amro, clashes broke out between Palestinian youth and Israeli soldiers in the area following the deadly shooting and “are still ongoing across the city.”
Earlier on Tuesday, a Palestinian man also died during an Israeli army operation in Hebron, as he handled a makeshift explosive device.
The man intended to toss the device at a military vehicle, the Israeli army said.
Palestinian security officials, however, said he was shot dead by Israeli troops in the village of Khursa near Hebron. They identified him as 21-year-old Dia al-Talahmeh.
The army spokeswoman said a patrol had been deployed to clear stones blocking a road outside Hebron.
“[Israeli] forces arrived at the scene and immediately heard a loud explosion,” the army spokeswoman told Al Jazeera. “They then searched the area and found a body. The initial inquiry suggests that the suspect attempted to hurl an explosive device at the army vehicle and it detonated on himself.”
Tensions have been running high across the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, ahead of the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday, which begins at sundown on Tuesday, and the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, which begins Wednesday evening and continues until Sunday.
Israel has deployed thousands of police in Jerusalem and is closing it off from the West Bank.
With the latest death, at least 25 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the beginning of 2015, according to U.N. figures.
Al Jazeera and wire services
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