Israeli forces kill Hamas man, Israeli policeman killed during attack

RAMALLAH, West Bank/GAZA (Reuters) -Israeli troops killed a Palestinian during an arrest raid in the occupied West Bank that touched off clashes with gunmen on Monday, and an Israeli border policeman died after he was shot by a security guard trying to thwart a Palestinian attacker.

The West Bank has seen violence simmer for months amid deadlocked Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, stirring concern among foreign mediators over a possible spread to Gaza, whose Islamist Hamas rulers have mostly held their fire since a May 2021 war.

The Israeli army said troops entered Nablus, among flashpoint northern West Bank areas that have been a focus of its recent raids, to detain militants. The soldiers exchanged fire with gunmen during the raid, it said.

The Den of Lions militant group said it had ambushed the troops. Palestinian medical officials said a 21-year-old man was killed. Hamas claimed him as a member without saying whether he took part in the fighting. There were no Israeli casualties.

In a separate incident at a checkpoint near Shuafat, a Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Jerusalem, a Palestinian attacker stabbed an Israeli border police officer, police said in a statement.

An Israeli civilian security guard at the scene shot at the attacker, hitting by mistake the officer, who later died of his wounds, the police said. The attacker was arrested.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Ali Sawafta; Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Alison Williams)