Nablus -- A Palestinian policeman shot dead an Israeli and wounded four others after they entered a holy site in a West Bank city without permission on Sunday, the Israeli military said. The group, described by a security official from a Israeli settlement near the scene as Jewish worshippers, were shot at Joseph's Tomb, which some Jews believe to be the burial place of the biblical patriarch, in the Palestinian city of Nablus. "An Israeli civilian was killed and four others injured after entering Joseph's Tomb in Nablus un-permitted," the military said in a statement in English. The military said it had been notified by Palestinian officials that "the civilians were shot by a Palestinian policeman who, after identifying suspicious movements, fired in their direction." Israeli and Palestinian security officials would meet to investigate the shooting, the statement said. The governor of Nablus, Jibreen al-Bakri, said the group of Israelis had "entered the area without coordinating it with the Palestinian Authority, as is the understanding with Israel." "We have detained the forces responsible for securing the area and are investigating what happened," Bakri told Reuters. It was the first reported fatal attack on Israelis in the West Bank since the killing of five family members last month in the settlement of Itamar in a nearby area in the central West Bank. Violence in the territory has dropped significantly since its peak during a Palestinian uprising a decade ago. Some 500,000 settlers live among 2.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Palestinians say the presence of the enclaves will deny them a viable state on land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
