Israeli forces shot and killed a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in the Aqbat Jaber refugee camp near the occupied West Bank city of Jericho on Monday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The boy was “killed by live occupation bullets in the head, chest and abdomen,” the ministry said, adding that two other people were injured by live ammunition and sent to a hospital in Jericho for treatment.
The Israeli military said they raided the camp to arrest a “terror suspect.”
“During the activity, violent riots were instigated in a number of locations,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement. “As the soldiers left the area, suspects opened fire toward them, hurled explosive devices and Molotov cocktails. The soldiers responded with live fire and .22 caliber ammunition. Hits were identified.”
Violence in Israel and the occupied West Bank has spiraled in the aftermath of recent Israeli police raids on the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Over the last week, dozens of rockets were launched from Lebanon, Gaza and Syria into Israeli territory, followed by Israeli retaliatory strikes.
On Friday, a vehicle hit a group of tourists in Tel Aviv, killing one Italian national, in what Israeli authorities described as a terror attack. Two sisters, aged 16 and 20, with dual British-Israeli citizenship were killed and their mother seriously wounded in a shooting attack in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday “instructed the Israel Police to mobilize all border police units in reserve and the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) to mobilize additional forces in face of terrorist attacks,” according to his office.
The Israeli military said it was on high alert, calling up an unspecified number of reservists amid what it described as “very volatile times.”
