The man was pronounced dead at the scene due to gunshot wounds, Israeli ambulance service Magen David Adom (MDA) said.
CCTV footage showed a car approaching a security booth near the entrance of Ariel settlement before two men stepped out and fired at two guards inside it, killing one of them. The other guard was unharmed, Israeli newspaper Haaretz said.
The shooters managed to flee the scene and the Zionist regime’s military said it launched a large manhunt in the area.
A lockdown was announced in Ariel settlement located in the central West Bank after the shooting.
Entrances to Salfit, the nearest Palestinian city to Ariel, have been closed, according to the Palestinian news website Arab48.
More than 600,000 Zionists live in over 200 settlements and outposts, deemed illegal under international law, across the West Bank and East Al-Quds.
Later in the night, a Palestinian man was fatally shot by Israeli troops during a raid in Azzun town near Qalqilya, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The man was identified as Yahya Ali Adwan, 27, who was a former prisoner.
There are no immediate links between Adwan’a martyrdom and the earlier incident in Ariel.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, one of the main groups present in the occupied West Bank, claimed responsibility for the operation.
“We claim responsibility for the heroic operation in the colony of Ariel in which a Zionist officer was killed, in response to violations committed by the occupation regime in Al-Quds,” the group said.
On its part, Hamas, the Palestinian movement that administers the Gaza Strip, hailed the attack as an “heroic operation”, with spokesman Hazem Qassem declaring it a response to the “attacks on Al-Aqsa,” Islam’s third holiest site, which has been one of the focal points for weeks of violence.
The Friday shooting comes nearly a month after 14 Zionists were killed in a series of shooting and stabbing attacks carried out by Palestinians from the West Bank and inside Occupied Palestine in retaliation for the occupying regime’s atrocities.
Israeli troops and police have been on high alert since, deploying additional military battalions to the West Bank and stepping up their operations in the occupied Palestinian territory.
At least 20 Palestinians were fatally shot by Zionist forces in April, bringing the total number of Palestinians in the West Bank martyred by Israeli forces this year to over 50.
Tensions have been heightened in recent weeks by an Israeli military
crackdown in the northern West Bank, and recurring raids by Zionist troops and settlers on the most sensitive religious site in Al-Quds.
The site contains the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, and increasing numbers of Palestinians go there to pray during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The site is a frequent flashpoint of tensions, and the Israeli violence there last year helped spark an 11-day war between the occupying regime and Gaza resistance fighters.
The Palestinians say the presence of Israeli forces at the site, and regular visits by increasing numbers of Zionist extremists, are a violation of decades-old informal arrangements governing the site.
Over the past two weeks, nearly 300 Palestinians have been injured in raids by Zionist forces at the Al-Aqsa compound.
The site is in east Jerusalem, which Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War and
The occupying regime’s incursions into the compound during Ramadan has met widespread condemnation and raised fears of inflaming tensions across Al-Quds.
In an apparent attempt to ease tensions, Israel’s foreign minister Yair Lapid has
Muslim leaders have been angered by a recent uptick in visits. Some voiced fears that the occupying regime of Israel was seeking to divide the compound and create a space where Jews may worship.
According to the Al-Quds Islamic Waqf, nearly 3,700 Israeli settlers have entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound over the past week.
The fresh unrest comes as the end of Ramadan nears early next week and as the Zionist regime authorized new settlement construction in the illegally occupied West Bank city of Al-Khalil (Hebron).
On Wednesday, the Zionist regime’s high court approved the construction of a 31-unit six-storey apartment complex for settlers in the heart of the city.
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