JERUSALEM, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian man was killed by Israeli troops during his arrest in the West Bank early Thursday morning, according to Palestinian sources.
The man was seriously beaten after he was laying on the ground incapacitated, before he died, said the sources.
The Palestinian Prisoners' Club identified him as Yassin al-Saradeeh, a 33-year-old resident of the southern West Bank city of Jericho.
A spokesperson of the Israeli military confirmed the man died following his arrest but said he was an assailant who had tried to attack soldiers during clashes sparked by military raid to arrest suspects in Jericho.
During the clashes, "a Palestinian assailant armed with an iron rod ran towards IDF (Israel Defense Forces) troops and attempted to attack the troops," the spokesperson said in a statement.
The soldiers then "fired towards" the suspect, the spokesperson said, adding that they also "confronted him from close range" before they caught and arrested him.
A knife was also found in his possession before the army evacuated him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The military did not specify the cause of the Palestinian's death.
Al-Saradeeh's family told Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper that al-Saradeeh did not try to attack soldiers but was apparently trying to run away from the riots.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners' Club, he died after inhaling tear gas fired by the soldiers.
A CCTV video that has surfaced on Palestinian social networks shows al-Saradeeh running forward in an apparently empty alley, holding an object in his hands. A group of soldiers than appeared, one of them fired towards his legs from a very close range. The other soldiers were seen gathering around him, kicking and beating him with rifles.
The incident took place on the day that Amnesty International released a report, denouncing Israel for killing Palestinian civilians without a trial.
"Israeli forces unlawfully killed Palestinian civilians, including children, and unlawfully detained within Israel thousands of Palestinians from the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), holding hundreds in administrative detention without charge or trial," the report read.
The human rights group further blamed Israel for "torture and other ill-treatment of detainees, including children."
In 2017, an Israeli court convicted Sgt. Elor Azaria of manslaughter of a Palestinian assailant after he was shot and lay on the ground wounded and motionless in the West Bank city of Hebron in March 2016.
Israel occupied the West Bank during the 1967 Middle East war and has controlled it ever since, despite international criticism.
