Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian boy near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank on Monday, according to the Palestinian ministry of health. According to the Israeli army, they opened fire after protesters tossed Molotov cocktails.
Omar Khmour, 14, was shot in the head early Monday in the Dheisheh refugee camp in the southern West Bank and “succumbed to his wounds”, the ministry said.
The Israeli military said on Monday that soldiers opened fire after suspects threw rocks, explosives, and Molotov cocktails at them.
He is the second boy to have been slain in Dheisheh by an Israeli military invasion this month.
One person was arrested at Dheisheh, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.
According to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, the army stormed the camp at dawn and commenced a campaign of house raids.
Monday evening, mourners gathered for Khmour’s burial, with his mother leading the procession through Dheisheh.
His corpse was draped in a red and white keffiyeh and a Palestinian flag before being carried by Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) militants.
According to an AFP count, Khmour is the fourteenth Palestinian slain in the West Bank since the beginning of the year, including civilians and combatants, with the vast majority shot dead by Israeli troops.
Following a spate of deadly assaults on Israelis in March and April of last year, Israeli troops have conducted near-nightly raids in the West Bank, resulting in the deaths of dozens.
The violence in 2022 made it the most deadly year in the West Bank since 2005, when the United Nations started keeping data.
AFP reports that at least 26 Israelis and 200 Palestinians were killed in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
»Palestinian boy shot in the head by Israeli forces near Bethlehem«