The shooting threatened to inflame tensions in the West Bank, where Jewish settlers and Palestinians live in uneasy proximity and where settlers have responded to attacks in the past with violent reprisals.
Police identified the dead as Ben-Yosef Livnat, a Jerusalem resident. Israeli media reported that Livnat was the nephew of Limor Livnat, a prominent hardline Cabinet minister from the ruling Likud Party.
Livnat, who attended the funeral, said her nephew was killed by a “terrorist disguised as a Palestinian policeman.”
Ben-Yosef Livnat and several companions entered the Palestinian city of Nablus early on Sunday to visit a site known as Joseph’s Tomb. Jewish worshippers regularly enter the city with a special military escort to pray at a building traditionally identified as the gravesite of the biblical Joseph, located inside a Palestinian-ruled area.
Published 24 April 2011, 17:45 IST