JERUSALEM -- Europe's top diplomat in Israel said Wednesday he has urged Israeli officials to reverse last month's contentious expropriation of 1,000 acres of West Bank land but stressed that the European Union is not considering anti-Israel sanctions over the issue.
Low-level violence continued Wednesday in the West Bank, with Israeli troops killing a Palestinian man during an arrest raid that provoked violent resistance, the military and a Palestinian medic said.
The Israeli expropriation move was announced on Aug. 31 -- just days after a 50-day Gaza war ended with a cease-fire and a commitment to negotiations -- and provoked strong criticism from the United States, the Palestinians and individual European countries.
It was seen as undermining prospects for a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not only for the timing of such an announcement but also because it further reduces the land available for a future Palestinian state.
Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem on Wednesday, the European Union's Lars Faaborg-Andersen said he had asked Israel to reverse the expropriation during a meeting last week at the Foreign Ministry.
Faaborg-Andersen said he told Israeli deputy foreign minister, Tzachi Hanegbi, that the expropriation was "an alarming development" and "one of the worst signals to send in the current situation."
But he added that even if Israel refuses to accede to this request, it should not fear the imposition of sanctions from the European Union. "That issue is not on the agenda now," he said.
The expropriated land is in an area near Jerusalem that Israel hopes to keep under any future peace deal. The Israeli military said the expropriation would go forward, following a government directive made at the end of a military operation in June that involved a search for three Israeli teens abducted and killed by Hamas militants.
The killing of the three teens sparked a chain of events that led to war in the Gaza Strip, which killed more than 2,100 Palestinians, three-quarters of whom were civilians, according to Palestinian and U.N. estimates. On the Israeli side, 66 soldiers and six civilians died.
Meanwhile, low level violence continued Wednesday in the West Bank, with Israeli troops killing a Palestinian man during an arrest raid that provoked violent resistance, the military and a Palestinian medic said.
In Wednesday's killing in the West Bank, Ahmad Betawi, the director of Ramallah Hospital, said 22-year-old Essa Qatri was shot in the chest with live fire and died shortly before reaching the hospital.
Israeli forces entered the al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah in the early morning hours to arrest a Hamas operative, the military said. It said it encountered dozens of Palestinian protesters who burnt tires and threw stones at the troops. Witnesses in the camp gave a similar account of the incident.
"A main instigator attempted to hurl an explosive device at the troops who opened fire in response," the military said, without elaborating on the nature of the device. It said forces arrested the wanted operative, who was found with weapons.
During the summer's Gaza conflict, the West Bank remained largely quiet. Still, some flare-ups occurred and a number of Palestinians were killed in separate incidents.
