Israeli troops kill Palestinian in West Bank Published duration 29 January 2014

image copyright Reuters image caption Angry Palestinians confronted Israeli troops near Ramallah after the incident

A Palestinian man has been shot dead by Israeli troops in the West Bank.

Palestinian medics identified him as Mohammed Mubarak, 22, a labourer from the Jalazun refugee camp near Ramallah.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said its soldiers had opened fire on a "terrorist" after he attacked an army post near the settlement of Ofra.

But Palestinian witnesses told the AFP news agency that Mubarak had not been armed, and had been harassed by the troops and made to remove his clothes.

A Palestinian Red Crescent spokesman said he was found with three bullet wounds in his back.

Palestinian Housing and Public Works Minister Maher Ghneim called for an investigation into the "cold-blooded killing".

He said Mubarak had been working on a project co-ordinated by his ministry.

The Israeli military insisted its soldiers felt "an imminent threat to their lives", adding that a weapon and 12 bullet casings had been recovered.

Ohad Shoham, the soldier who says he shot Mubarak, told Israeli Army Radio the Palestinian had fired a gun.

He was the first Palestinian to have been killed by Israeli troops in the West Bank this year.

Twenty-seven Palestinians were killed in 2013, according to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem , three times as many as in 2012.

In the same period, the group said nine Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were killed by Israeli forces, while Palestinians killed three Israeli civilians and three Israeli security forces personnel in Israel and the West Bank.