Israeli military forces have shot dead a Palestinian teenager and injured another during a raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the northern part of the West Bank.
The latest incident comes as tensions are rising in the occupied territories fueled by the Israeli army incursions, arrests, and arbitrary killings.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli troops stormed Haifa Street early on Saturday, setting off a gun battle with local residents.
“A 17-year-old boy was killed, and an 18-year-old was critically wounded by the Israeli occupation’s bullets during its aggression on Jenin,” a statement by the Palestinian Ministry of Health said.
The ministry identified the dead teen as Amjad al-Fayyad.
BREAKING: Amjad Fayed, a 17-year-old Palestinian, was shot dead by Israeli occupation forces during a late night Israeli raid of Jenin, north of the occupied West Bank, according to the Ministry of Health. pic.twitter.com/UkcY4RFpnx
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) May 21, 2022
Jenin refugee camp has served as a flashpoint amid recent tensions. Thirteen Palestinians were injured last week during an operation by Israeli forces in the camp in which Israeli commando, Sergeant Major Noam Raz, was killed.
One of the injured Palestinians, Daoud Zubeidi, the brother of the former commander of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade in Jenin and Gilboa prison escapee Zakaria Zubeidi, later died of wounds he sustained during a gun battle with Israeli soldiers.
Shireen Abu Akleh, a veteran Palestinian journalist for the Qatar-based and Arabic-language Al Jazeera television news network, was killed earlier this month while covering another Israeli operation in the camp.
In video footage from the incident circulated widely online, Abu Akleh could be seen wearing a blue flak jacket marked with the word “PRESS” when being shot by Israeli troops, exposing the gruesome nature of the daylight murder.
Ali Samoudi, a Palestinian journalist who was accompanying Abu Akleh, was hospitalized in stable condition after being shot in the back.
Samoudi told the Associated Press that they were among a group of seven reporters who went to cover the Israeli raid early Wednesday.
He said they were all wearing protective gear that marked them as reporters, and they passed by Israeli troops so the soldiers would see them.
The journalist said the first shot missed them, then a second struck him, and a third killed Abu Akleh, adding that there were no combatants or other civilians in the area — only the reporters and Israeli army troops.
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Shaza Hanaysheh, a reporter with a Palestinian news website, who was also among the reporters, gave a similar account, stressing there were no clashes or shooting in the immediate area.
She said that when the shots rang out she and Abu Akleh ran toward a tree to take shelter.
“I reached the tree before Shireen. She fell on the ground,” Hanaysheh said. “The soldiers did not stop shooting even after she fell. Every time I extended my hand to pull Shireen, the soldiers fired at us.”
In a raid that has sparked international outrage, baton-wielding Israeli police beat several pallbearers and mourners as they carried the journalist’s coffin out of a hospital before her burial.
Her coffin almost fell as Israeli forces waded into a crowd of Palestinians gathered around it.
The far-right march granted approval to pass through al-Quds Muslim quarter
Meanwhile, Israeli authorities have approved the annual far-right Flag March to pass through the Damascus Gate, one of the main gates of the Old City of al-Quds, and the nearby Muslim quarter, drawing condemnation from Palestinians and activists.
The Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported that Israel’s Public Security Minister Mer Bar-Lev, along with Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai, reached an agreement earlier this year with right-wing march organizers to allow the event.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates in a statement condemned Bar-Lev’s decision to approve the event, calling it “provocative, aggressive, and an integral part of the open occupation war against al-Quds, its citizens, and its sanctities.”
The statement also called on the United States to “stop the policy of double standards and translate its words into actions to protect al-Quds and its citizens”.
The “Flag March” is usually held on the so-called Jerusalem Day, which marks Israel’s capture and subsequent occupation of East al-Quds in the 1967 Middle East war.
