The Palestinian police shot and killed one Israeli and wounded four others early Sunday after the Israelis surreptitiously visited a Jewish holy site inside a Palestinian-controlled area, officials on both sides said.
The shooting occurred outside Joseph’s Tomb in the West Bank city of Nablus after three carloads of religious Israeli Jews visited the site to pray, without coordinating their plans through the Israeli Army. Twice-monthly trips to the tomb have been organized with army escorts for the past four years without incident.
Palestinian security officials said they were questioning the Palestinian police officers who fired their weapons during the episode. The dead man was identified as Ben-Yosef Livnat, a 24-year-old father of four from Jerusalem and a nephew of Limor Livnat, the minister of culture and sport from the Likud Party in Israel. Mr. Livnat grew up on a settlement near Nablus, where his parents still live.
After the shooting, Palestinian youths set fires outside the tomb. Israeli and Palestinian security officials extinguished them. Later, at a funeral procession for Mr. Livnat that began at the nearby settlement, dozens of masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians along the way, smashing their cars and wounding a boy.
The procession ended at a grave site on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem where Ms. Livnat, the minister and aunt of the dead man, called his killing “a cold-blooded murder.”
A statement from Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is responsible for Israeli security in the West Bank, also used the term “murder,” adding, “No failure of coordination can justify an event of this kind and firing on innocent people.” Mr. Barak instructed the army to investigate and demanded that the Palestinians do the same and that they take all necessary measures against those who fired.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the killing as well.
The Palestinian governor of Nablus, Jibril al-Bakri, told Israel Radio that the shooting was a result of lack of coordination between the worshipers and the Israeli Army. He said that Palestinian police officers who were on a regular patrol shot a warning into the air before firing at the cars. He stressed that the shooting was a mistake.
An Israeli military spokesman said at day’s end that Israeli and Palestinian security officials had met and exchanged what they knew and were continuing their inquiries.
The Palestinians, he said, accused the Israeli worshipers of having thrown rocks at the police before the shooting began.
David Ha’Ivri, a Jewish settler spokesman who is involved in coordinating visits to Joseph’s Tomb with the Israeli Army, said some worshipers refused to visit in this way and sneaked in on their own.
“We do not endorse that,” Mr. Ha’Ivri said. “We call on people to be responsible.” He added that the organized visits to the tomb were nonetheless still too infrequent to accommodate all who wished to go. Most of those who sneak in are members of the Breslov Hasidic sect who live in Jerusalem, he and others said.
The military spokesman said that on Jewish holidays — it is Passover now — it was not uncommon for some devout Jews to sneak into holy sites under Palestinian control. If caught by the Palestinians, they are nearly always handed over to the Israelis without violence, he said.
Many Jews believe that Joseph’s Tomb is the final burial place of the son of Jacob, the biblical patriarch.
A spokesman for the Israeli rescue service, Magen David Adom, said that the cars had been fired upon after visiting the tomb. He said that apart from Mr. Livnat, who died of a gunshot wound to the head, two others in a second car were evacuated by helicopter. Others were lightly wounded and treated on the spot.
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