The health minister said soldiers shot and killed a 14-year-old boy near Bethlem. The Israeli army said he threw a petrol bomb at the soldiers, who “used live ammunition to end the immediate threat.”
In a separate incident, a Palestinian was killed by Israeli army gunfire in Nablus on a main street near Joseph’s Tomb, the minister said, referring to a Jewish shrine where Israel carried out repairs Wednesday after Palestinians vandalized it.
The minister identified him as Mohammed Assaf, 34, a lawyer who worked for a department of the Palestine Liberation Organization that documents and lobbies against Israeli settlement activities on land that Palestinians demand for a settlement. tat.
A PLO anti-colonization unit official said Assaf was driving his nephews to a nearby school and stopped on the side of the road to watch the unfolding of events when clashes broke out at the grave.
A military statement on operations in the West Bank on Wednesday said an “armed suspect” was hit near Nablus. It was not clear if it was Assaf.
Israeli troops had secured the area around the tomb while repair work was underway. The army said hundreds of Palestinians threw stones and petrol bombs at the soldiers, who responded with live fire and riot dispersal measures.
Israeli forces arrested nearly 20 people they described as terrorism suspects in and around Nablus and other towns during Wednesday’s operations, according to the army and police.
Palestinian health officials said seven people were injured by live ammunition during the clashes in Nablus, and two of them were in critical condition.
The Israeli army has stepped up its raids in the West Bank following attacks by two Palestinians from the territory and three members of Israel’s Arab minority that have killed 14 people in Israel since late March.
More than 20 Palestinians, many of them shooters, have been killed by Israeli forces since January.
The Palestinian Foreign Minister said on Wednesday he held Israel “fully responsible for the repercussions” of the army’s actions and a spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas called on the international community to intervene.
Israel has accused the Palestinian Authority of not doing enough to contain the militants and of encouraging violence against Israelis by paying stipends to the families of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, some of whom have been sentenced for deadly attacks.
The bloodshed coincided with the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, during which Israeli-Palestinian violence has erupted in the past. Last May, it turned into an 11-day war between militants in Gaza and Israel.