JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian teenager on Tuesday during an army raid in a refugee camp in the northern West Bank, Palestinian officials said.
The death was the latest in an almost year-long surge in Israeli-Palestinian violence that shows no signs of abating.
Meanwhile, in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, a video captured by an American journalist showing an Israeli soldier shoving a Palestinian activist to the ground and then kicking him caused an uproar online – prompting the Israeli military to jail the soldier for 10 days.
Early on Tuesday, the Israeli military said it carried out raids across the occupied West Bank overnight. During an operation in the Faraa refugee camp near the northeastern city of Tubas, the army said it opened fire on a Palestinian who approached troops with an explosive device.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said that 17-year-old Mahmoud al-Aydi died from a bullet wound to the head. No militant group immediately claimed him as a member.
Also on Tuesday, a 25-year-old Palestinian succumbed to wounds he suffered two years ago when the Israeli army shot him in Masafer Yatta, in the southern West Bank, leaving him paralysed from the neck down.
Palestinian health officials identified him as Haroun Abu Aram. Footage from the incident in 2021 showed him struggling to prevent Israeli security forces from confiscating his portable generator before a shot rang out, and he collapsed.
In Hebron, prominent Palestinian activist Issa Amro was giving an interview to Lawrence Wright of The New Yorker magazine on Monday when an Israeli soldier grabbed Amro by the neck as if to choke him before throwing him onto a brick sidewalk, footage posted by Wright on Twitter showed.
The soldier kicked Amro as he lay on the ground and began to drag him on the concrete before another soldier intervened, pulling him away from Amro.
Late on Monday, the Israeli army said the soldier would serve 10 days in military prison and be suspended from active combat duty, adding, “As the video shows, the soldier did not act as expected and did not follow the (military’s) code of conduct.”
Palestinian and human rights groups accuse the Israeli military of frequently using excessive force and said soldiers are rarely punished for violent acts.
Even in the most shocking cases – and those captured on video – soldiers often get relatively light sentences.
