Israeli forces killed a 17-year-old Palestinian on Tuesday during a violent clash during a military raid in Nablus, in the northern occupied West Bank, according to concordant sources.
Hamza Amjad al-Ashqar “was killed by a bullet in the face fired by occupation soldiers during the aggression in Nablus”, writes the Palestinian Ministry of Health in a brief press release.
According to an army statement, soldiers were targeted by the throwing of “stones, explosive devices and Molotov cocktails” during an “anti-terrorist action” in the city of Nablus. The soldiers “fired back with live ammunition towards an armed suspect who had fired at them”, and hit someone, the statement added.
Asked by AFP about the nature of the weapon used by this person, an army spokesman was not able to immediately provide an answer.
According to Palestinian security sources and residents, the raid by Israeli forces on Nablus, a Palestinian autonomous area under the Oslo Accords (1993), began around 4 a.m. (2 a.m. GMT).
During the incursion, violent clashes took place in an eastern district of the city neighboring the Palestinian refugee camp of Askar, where the young Ashqar was from, according to the same sources.
“The Den of Lions”, a Palestinian armed group from Nablus, indicated on the social network Telegram that some of its fighters had taken part in these clashes, but without saying whether Ashqar was one of its members.
According to residents, Israeli forces arrested three Palestinians during the raid.
The Israeli army, for its part, indicates that it has arrested nine Palestinians during various nocturnal “anti-terrorist actions” in the West Bank, but none in Nablus. The Palestinian Prisoners Club reported 35 nightly arrests, of which 14 people were still detained at the end of the morning.
Israel regularly accuses the Palestinian Authority of failing to meet its obligations by failing to arrest armed operatives planning anti-Israeli attacks, and the army is stepping up operations in areas of the West Bank normally under Palestinian security control under peace accords. ‘Oslo.
Since the beginning of the year, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of 42 Palestinians (among them combatants and civilians, including minors), six Israeli civilians (including a minor), and a Ukrainian woman, according to a tally from AFP based on official Israeli and Palestinian sources.