RAMALLAH: Israeli forces on Wednesday shot dead a 21-year-old Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, while a boy wounded in clashes at a refugee camp in East Jerusalem died from his injuries.
Aref Lahlouh, from the Jenin refugee camp, was with his mother and brother near the Kedumim settlement, east of Qalqilya, in the northern West Bank, when he was killed. His body was then seized by Israeli troops.
Israel’s media claimed that Lahlouh had been carrying a knife for an attack.
Israeli forces later arrested Lahlouh’s father, Abdul-Nasser, 54, as he returned home from work in Israel at a military checkpoint in northern Jenin, Palestinian sources said.
Separately, Mohammed Ali Abu Salah, a young Palestinian seriously injured after being hit by a bullet fired by an Israeli soldier during clashes between dozens of Palestinians and Israeli police in the Shuafat refugee camp, east of Jerusalem, has died, Palestinian medical sources said on Wednesday evening.
Trouble flared when around 300 Israeli police arrived at the camp to demolish the home of Uday Al-Tamimi who had fatally shot military policewoman Noa Lazar at a checkpoint in October. He was killed by Israeli forces after a 10-day manhunt.
The latest deaths bring to 20 the number of Palestinians killed by Israelis since the beginning of the year, four of them children. Last year, 224 Palestinians were killed.
The Israeli army also demolished six houses in Al-Dyouk Al-Tahta village, west of Jericho.
Palestinian sources said the village, with a population of 1,300, has been subjected to continuous attacks by the Israeli army as part of a policy of forced displacement aimed at emptying the area of its original inhabitants in favor of Israeli settlement.
Also on Wednesday, dozens of civilians, including schoolgirls, were injured by tear gas fired by the Israeli army during clashes that erupted in the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron.
Adnan Al-Damiri, a retired major general and the former spokesman for the Palestinian security services, told Arab News that Israeli soldiers now appeared to be able to open fire on Palestinians simply for being seen as suspects.
He said: “As long as the Israeli army and government do not hold their officers accountable who kill Palestinians for no reason, the Palestinian resistance will escalate against the Israeli army.”
Al-Damiri claimed that some Israeli officers aired their anti-Palestinian feelings in public and ignored the army’s instructions on firing, adding that extremist behaviors by Israeli government ministers and the army would only serve to harden the resolve of Palestinians and the Palestinian security services.
Meanwhile, President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement has called on Palestinians to escalate resistance in all its forms “against the Israeli occupation and its terrorist policies” in response to the continuous house demolitions.
In a statement, Fatah said demolitions and collective punishment policies were part of the displacement schemes that the far-right Israeli government sought to implement.
In another incident, the Israeli spy agency Shin Bet canceled 230 permits for Palestinians from the Gaza Strip working in Israel and stopped them from entering Israel.
The reason given was that their relatives affiliated with Gaza rulers Hamas had been found to be involved in inciting youths in the West Bank to carry out violent attacks.
