Palestinians shoot dead rabbi in reprisal for 15 dead

PALESTINIANS shot dead a rabbi from a Jewish settlement in the West Bank on Thursday in what militants called the first response to an Israeli air strike that killed 15 Palestinians, including a top militant.

Two Palestinian militant groups claimed responsibility for killing Rabbi Elimelech Shapira, 43, and wounding another man in an ambush as they drove along a road near a Jewish settlement close to the West Bank city of Qalqilya.

“The operation is part of the armed struggle and in response to the assassination of our people in Gaza and (Hamas militant) Salah Shehada,” the Popular Army Front-Return Battalions, a coalition of militant groups, said in a statement.