Israel troops kill Palestinian man in Hebron: PA health ministry

Israeli forces killed yet another Palestinian in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The killing marks the latest bloodshed in spiralling violence that comes as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits the region.

The Palestinian health ministry said the man, Nassim Abu Fouda, 26, was shot in Hebron, an area that suffers some of the worst Israeli abuses and where the Israeli army often uses violence against Palestinians. The military had no immediate comment.

It comes after an Israeli military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin last week killed nine Palestinians, and a Palestinian shooting attack in an illegal settlement in occupied East Jerusalem that killed seven Israelis.

Unrest has continued in the ensuing days, and Israel has approved a series of punitive steps against Palestinians. 

Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem last year, making it the deadliest year in those territories since 2004, according to figures from the Israeli rights group B'Tselem.

The killings have spiked this month, during the first weeks of Israel's new far-right government, which has promised to take a tough stance against the Palestinians and ramp up settlement construction.

Monday's death brings the toll of Palestinians killed this month to 35.

Blinken's visit, which was planned before the flare-up, was expected to be fraught with tension over differences between the Biden administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new government, which is made up of settlement supporters.

He will now need to contend with an additional challenge during his trip, trying to restore calm even as violence persists.

After the Jenin raid, the Palestinians said they would cancel security coordination with Israel. Israel has vowed to beef up Jewish settlements in the West Bank.