By Xinhua
Ramallah : A Palestinian security officer was killed on Wednesday evening by the gunfire of a special Israeli army undercover unit in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, witnesses and medics said.
Witnesses said that a group of Palestinian national security officers stationed at a Palestinian security roadblock in the outskirts of Bethlehem suspected a car that drove so fast near the roadblock and didn’t stop.
Several national security officers ran after the suspected car that carried local Palestinian plates, the witnesses said, adding the car had suddenly stopped and an armed anonymous man opened fire at the Palestinian force.
Palestinian security forces said that several Israeli soldiers disguising as Palestinian workers were in the suspected car and the one who shot at the Palestinian force is an Israeli soldier.
Medics said that a national security officer was critically wounded after he was shot in the abdomen and the leg. The young man died of his sustained wounds later at the Bethlehem Hospital.
Earlier on Wednesday, three Palestinians were killed and five more were injured in an Israeli airstrike on the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahia. Two of the killed are Hamas militants and the third was a civilian.
Meanwhile, several militant groups in Gaza claimed responsibility on Wednesday for firing homemade rockets and mortar shells at Israeli towns and communities in southern Israel. No injuries were reported.