Israeli forces kill Palestinian teen in West Bank raid

Israeli forces killed a Palestinian teenager and injured two other people in a raid on a refugee camp near Jericho in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Palestinian health ministry said.

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 Monday.

An earlier statement said two people were injured by “occupation (Israeli) bullets”.

The Israeli army meanwhile said its forces were operating in the Aqabat Jaber camp near Jericho, without providing further details.

Separately, 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.

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.

Surging violence

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 rising tension has bought widespread concern and calls for calm from across the region.

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.