Nigerian security forces clashed with protesters during mass demonstrations over the country’s economic crisis, leaving at least nine people dead, a rights group said Friday. One police officer was killed as the military threatened to intervene to quell any violence.

Meanwhile, four people were killed and 34 injured Thursday when a bomb went off in a crowd of protesters in the conflict-hit northeastern state of Borno, authorities said.

Police continued to fire tear gas at protesters in various locations, including the capital of Abuja, as they regrouped on Friday.

SECURITY FORCES RESCUE 14 NIGERIAN STUDENTS ABDUCTED BY GUNMEN

The military will also intervene if the looting and destruction of public properties witnessed on Thursday continued, Nigeria’s defense chief Gen. Christopher Musa said. “We will not fold our arms and allow this country to be destroyed,” Musa told reporters in Abuja.

More than 400 protesters had been arrested as of Friday, the Nigerian police said. Curfews were imposed in five northern states after the looting of government and public properties, but protesters defied the curfews in some places, resulting in arrests and clashes with police.

National police chief Kayode Egbetokun said Thursday night that the police are on red alert and may seek the help of the military.

Amnesty International’s Nigeria director Isa Sanusi said in an interview that the group independently verified deaths that were reported by witnesses, families of the victims, and lawyers.

The protests were mainly over food shortages and accusations of misgovernment and corruption in Africa’s most populous country. Nigeria’s public officials are among the best paid in Africa, a stark contrast in a country that has some of the world’s poorest and hungriest people despite being one of the continent’s top oil producers.

The cost-of-living crisis — the worst in a generation — is fueled by surging inflation that is at a 28-year high and the government’s economic policies that have pushed the local currency to record low against the dollar.

Carrying placards, bells, tree branches and Nigeria’s green-and-white flag, the mostly young protesters chanted songs as they listed their demands, including the reinstatement of gas and electricity subsidies that were canceled as part of an economic reform effort.

Violence and looting were concentrated in Nigeria’s northern states, which are among the hardest hit by hunger and insecurity. Dozens of protesters were seen running with looted goods including furniture and gallons of cooking oil.

Egbetokun, the police chief, said officers “aimed at ensuring peaceful conduct.” But, he added “regrettably, events in some major cities today showed that what was being instigated was mass uprising and looting, not protest.”

The police chief’s claim was disputed by rights groups and activists. “Our findings so far show that security personnel at the locations where lives were lost deliberately used tactics designed to kill,” Sanusi said.

Authorities feared the protests, which have been gathering momentum on social media, could be a replay of the deadly 2020 demonstrations against police brutality in this West African nation, or as a wave of violence similar to last month’s chaotic tax hike protests in Kenya.

However, the threats that emerged as the protests turned violent in some places did “not require that level of response” from police officers, said Anietie Ewang, a Nigerian researcher with Human Rights Watch.

Medical sources tell Al Jazeera that Haitham Balidi, a leader of Hamas’s military wing in Nablus, was killed in an air attack on a car in the occupied West Bank.

At least five people, including a local commander of Hamas’s military wing, have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a car in Tulkarem in the occupied West Bank.

Medical sources confirmed to Al Jazeera on Saturday that one of the people killed was Haitham Balidi, leader of the Qassam Brigades in the Nablus area. Another person was identified by a relative as one of the leaders of al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.

The identities of the other people were not immediately clear. Family members went to a hospital in Tulkarem to identify the dismembered bodies brought there.

The Israeli military said the car contained a “terrorist squad,” without further elaborating. Air attacks in the occupied Palestinian territory have surged since the start of the war in Gaza on October 7, with authorities recording at least 29 strikes which killed more than 80 Palestinians.

The attack took place as the Israeli army raided several towns across the West Bank.

In Tulkarem city, Israeli bulldozers destroyed infrastructure, while in Nablus Israeli soldiers rounded up three Palestinians, including a journalist. Other incursions were reported in Jenin, Faqqa, Deir Abu Daif, Bethlehem and near Ramallah. In occupied East Jerusalem, Israeli forces once again arrested activist Ramzi Abbasi after he had been released last November.

Since October 7, Israeli forces have killed at least 600 Palestinians in the West Bank, including 144 children.

Meanwhile, ground Israeli raids and mass arrests in the West Bank have also ballooned over the same period, becoming a nearly daily occurrence.

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society watchdog says more than 9,300 people have ended up in Israeli prisons. Of these, at least 3,400 are in so-called administrative detention, a controversial practice that allows Israel to hold suspects for extended periods without having committed an offence.

Israeli incursion in cities and towns across the occupied West Bank is also causing major disruption for civilian life. The UNRWA agency for Palestinian refugees said on Friday that the situation in the West Bank is worsening daily in what it described as a “silent war” amid water shortages and electricity outages.

Since 1967, the West Bank has been under Israeli occupation. In a landmark, yet non-binding ruling, the International Court of Justice last month declared Israel’s continued presence unlawful.