Jericho, Palestian: Israeli forces killed a Palestinian teenager and injured two other people in the West Bank Monday, the Palestinian health ministry said, in what the army described as a raid to arrest a "terror suspect".
It comes amid surging violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in recent days, coinciding with the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, Jewish Passover and Christian Easter.
Mohammed Fayez Balhan, 15, was killed after being shot "with live occupation (Israeli) bullets in the head, chest and abdomen", the ministry said. An earlier statement said two people were injured by "occupation (Israeli) bullets".
The Israeli army confirmed its forces were operating in the Aqabat Jaber camp near Jericho, saying soldiers were working "to apprehend a terror suspect". According to the army, soldiers responded with live fire after "suspects opened fire toward (soldiers), hurled explosive devices and Molotov cocktails".
A suspect was taken in by security forces, the army added. The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had transferred one person to hospital with a bullet wound to the head. Clashes erupted when the army entered the camp and surrounded several houses, according to Palestinian news agency Wafa. A Palestinian security official told AFP that five individuals were arrested during the raid.
- Settlers' demonstration -
The operation came one day after the burial of two British-Israeli women killed in a shooting attack in the Jordan Valley, where Jericho is also located. The two sisters, aged 16 and 20, were killed Friday when their car came under fire in the West Bank, where they lived in a Jewish settlement. Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War and hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers live in Israeli-approved settlements there, considered illegal under international law.
The Jericho raid came as hundreds of Israelis marched in the northern West Bank, pushing for state approval of an Israeli settler outpost. Several ministers -- including Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir -- were expected to appear at the march to Eviatar, whose residents agreed to leave in 2021 while officials examined their case. Demonstrators of all ages waved Israeli flags as they rallied along closed-off roads, accompanied by a heavy security presence. Rivka Katzir, a 74-year-old resident of Elkana, another West Bank settlement, told AFP "the one solution for this problem is if we settle this place".
- Surging violence -
The rising tension has bought widespread concern and calls for calm from across the region. On Wednesday, Israeli police stormed the prayer hall of Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third-holiest site, in a pre-dawn raid aimed at dislodging "law-breaking youths and masked agitators" they said had barricaded themselves inside. The next day, more than 30 rockets were fired from Lebanese soil into Israel, which the Israeli army blamed on Palestinian groups, saying it was most likely Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip. Israel then bombarded Gaza and southern Lebanon, targeting "terror infrastructures" that it said belonged to Hamas. Late Friday an Italian tourist was killed and seven others wounded in a suspected car-ramming attack in Tel Aviv.
The Israeli army also said it launched strikes on targets in Syria Sunday morning, after rockets fired from there landed in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel's defence minister, Yoav Gallant, warned that day that "any terrorist who thinks they may elude the IDF during the holy days, is gravely mistaken", using the acronym for the Israeli army. "Anyone who attempts even the slightest harm, will be brought to justice," he added. The Aqabat Jaber camp has been the site of several deadly Israeli raids since the start of the year, notably in January when Israel said it killed five people, allegedly militants, in a single operation. This year, the conflict has claimed the lives of at least 94 Palestinians, 18 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian, according to an AFP count based on Israeli and Palestinian official sources. These figures include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, including minors, and on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, including minors, and three members of the Arab minority.
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