Jericho, Palestinian Territories – 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.
Israeli settlers eye increased settlements
Carrying Israeli flags and accompanied by soldiers, thousands of determined demonstrators rallied in the West Bank on Monday, pushing for more settlements to be set up in the occupied Palestinian territory.
The crowd, which included many families with young children, was joined by far-right cabinet members including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who said “the response to terror is to build” settlements.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War, and since then has built scores of Jewish settlements alongside Palestinian cities, towns and villages.
While all settlements are deemed illegal under international law, Israel distinguishes between those planned by the state and outposts established by its citizens without government permission.
This distinction has led to tensions and prompted criticism from some Jewish settlers and far-right members of the government.
Israelis of all ages, including numerous armed men, walked to an outpost settlement built without approval from the state, as soldiers stationed within olive groves lined the route.
“I believe that the one solution for all of this problem is if we will settle this place,” said 74-year-old Rivka Katzir, from the settlement of Elkan.
“If there is a new settlement that we want to develop, then we will walk there,” she added, an Israeli flag attached to one of her walking poles.