The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed the Israeli army’s killing of 17-year-old Yusuf Bakr Zaoul in the occupied West Bank overnight, the Wafa news agency reported Friday.
Zaoul was shot in a village west of Bethlehem by Israeli soldiers who then took his body away, according to the report.
An official from the Palestinian Red Crescent told the news agency that his team was blocked by Israeli forces from approaching the scene, preventing medics from treating the wounded.
Later, the Israeli army announced it had shot and killed the teenager as “several terrorists hurled rocks toward Road 375 adjacent to Husan [a town located in the Bethlehem governate of the occupied West Bank]”
“Soldiers who were operating in the area responded with fire toward the terrorists, eliminated one terrorist and hit an additional terrorist,” the army stated.
The mayor of Husan, Jamal Sabateen, told AFP the army had opened fire on young Palestinians throwing stones.
In another attack reported by Wafa on Friday, Israeli settlers stormed the home of Mohammad Damin Abdu in Qira village, also in the West Bank, physically assaulting him and setting his vehicle on fire.
Overnight between Wednesday and Thursday, Times of Israel reported dozens of settlers hurling stones at Israeli police and setting fire to their vehicle. The officers were responding to a noise complaint from a wedding in the northern West Bank.
The West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, is home to about three million Palestinians as well as nearly 500,000 Israelis living in settlements that are illegal under international law.
According to the United Nations, some 40,000 residents have been displaced since Jan. 21, when the Israeli army launched an operation targeting Palestinian armed groups in the north of the territory.
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