RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Israeli forces killed a militant and a teenage boy during clashes that erupted early Monday when troops entered a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, Palestinians said.
Director of Ibn Sina Hospital in the northern city of Jenin, Samer Attiyeh, identified the two as Samer Houshiyeh, 21, who was shot with several gunshots in the chest, and Fouad Abed, 17, a civilian.
In a statement, al-Aqsa Brigades, a militant group linked with President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party, said Houshiyeh was a member. The brigades published an earlier photo in which Houshiyeh posed with rifles. Video on social media showed his body wrapped with the armed group’s flag as his mother and other mourners bid farewell.
The clashes erupted in Kafr Dan near Jenin. The Israeli military said it entered the town late Sunday to demolish the houses of two Palestinian gunmen who killed an Israeli soldier during a firefight in September.
The year 2022 was the deadliest in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since 2006. The Israeli military has conducted near-daily raids into Palestinian cities and towns, killing more than 150 Palestinians. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.
Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war and the Palestinians seek those territories for a future state.
