November 02, 2023 10:08 pm | Updated 10:08 pm IST – Ramallah, Palestinian Territories
Mourners carry the body of 13-year-old Palestinian Ayham Shafi’e who was killed in an Israeli raid, in Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank November 2, 2023.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS
Three Palestinians were killed Thursday by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said, and an Israeli was killed in a Palestinian shooting attack, according to first responders.
Violence has surged across the West Bank for months and intensified further since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the Palestinian militant group’s unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7.
On Thursday in El-Bireh, near the seat of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, two Palestinians, Ayham al-Shafei, 14 and Yazan Shiha, 24, were killed and two others wounded when Israeli troops opened fire during a raid, the Palestinian health ministry said.
A 19-year-old Palestinian, Qusai Quran, was killed by Israeli forces during a raid on Qalqilya in the northern West Bank, according to the ministry, reporting two others were wounded.
The Israeli army did not immediately comment on the incidents.
Elsewhere, an Israeli was killed after his car came under fire near the settlement of Einav, said Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency response organisation.
Israeli officials have not identified the fatality.
The army said in a statement it “has set up roadblocks in the area and is hunting down the terrorists” behind the alleged shooting near the Palestinian city of Tulkarm in the northern West Bank.
After the Israeli man’s death, dozens of settlers stormed the Palestinian village of Dayr Sharaf, located about seven kilometres (four miles) from the Einav settlement, an AFP correspondent said.
The correspondent saw Israelis setting Palestinian businesses and fields ablaze and smashing empty cars.
Also on Thursday, the Palestinian health ministry reported the death of 14-year-old Hamdan Hamdan of wounds sustained Monday by Israeli fire in a village near Nablus.
For several months, the West Bank has seen increasing Israeli army raids, attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers and Palestinian assaults against Israeli settlers and security forces.
According to the Palestinian ministry, Israeli forces and settlers have killed around 130 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7.
In the same period around 1,900 have been arrested by Israeli security forces, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group.
Some media and rights organisations have said videos circulating on social media show Israeli soldiers filming the abuse and humiliation of detained Palestinians.
In a statement this week, Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said it “has documented severe abuse and torture against Palestinian civilians and detainees at the hands of the Israeli army”.
The NGO said Palestinians near Hebron in the south of the West Bank had been “dragged and assaulted by Israeli soldiers”.
“The Palestinian civilians in the footage have been stripped of their clothes, have their hands and feet tied, and appear to have been left outdoors for hours at a time,” the statement said.
The United States warned on Wednesday that violence by settlers in the West Bank was “incredibly destabilising”.
A State Department spokesman called settler violence “counterproductive to Israel’s long-term security” and said Washington had been clear with Israel that it “needs to stop”.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and its forces regularly carry out raids on Palestinian militants there.
Israeli officials say the Hamas attacks have killed more than 1,400 people in Israel, most of them civilians.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says Israeli bombardments have killed more than 9,000 people, also mostly civilians, in the besieged Palestinian territory.