Ramallah, November 5 (RHC)-- Israeli forces have shot and killed another Palestinian amid escalating tensions in the occupied West Bank territories. The shooting took place on Wednesday near the city of Hebron, with Israeli forces claiming that the victim had ran over and injured two Israeli policemen in the West Bank, Palestinian Ma’an news agency reported.

The agency quoted an Israeli army spokesperson as saying that those wounded in the alleged hit-and-run incident were Israeli policemen, without providing further information.

Israeli authorities claimed that a 20-year-old Israeli was severely injured in the incident and another sustained moderate injuries. Israeli media, meanwhile, identified the Palestinian gunned down by Israeli soldiers following the incident as a 22-year-old male from Tulkarm.

Wednesday’s fatal shooting at Halhul junction on the edge of the flash-point city came after a two-day lull in such acts of aggression against Palestinians. Home to 200,000 Palestinians, Hebron sees frequent cases of violence as hundreds of Israeli settlers also live in the city, which has been the scene of near-daily clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian protesters.

Tensions in the occupied territories have dramatically escalated in recent weeks. The Israeli regime’s imposition of restrictions in August on the entry of Palestinian worshipers to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem has become the lightning rod for the surge of recent confrontations.