Palestinian shot dead by Israeli army in northern West Bank

By Awad Rjoob and Rania Abu Shamala

RAMALLAH, Palestine/ISTANBUL (AA) - A Palestinian was shot dead by the Israeli army and 12 others were injured, including a child, during raids late Thursday by Israeli forces and illegal settlers on several towns in the occupied West Bank.

Twenty-nine-year-old Alaa Shawkat Khudair was killed by Israeli army gunfire during a raid on the town of Beita, south of Nablus in the northern West Bank, said the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

In a separate incident, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a statement that its teams transported a 16-year-old child to the hospital after he was shot in the back with live ammunition during an Israeli raid on the town of Salem, east of Nablus.

Meanwhile, in Bani Na’im, east of Hebron in the southern West Bank, the Red Crescent said that its teams treated six people suffering from tear gas inhalation after Israeli forces stormed the town, closed several roads and deployed throughout multiple neighborhoods.

Palestinian anti-settlement activist Sami Makhamreh said that “three citizens were injured with wounds and bruises after being assaulted by settlers near the town of Susiya in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron.”

In northern Hebron, eyewitnesses told Anadolu that illegal settlers attacked two girls with disabilities at the southern entrance to the town of Sa’ir.

According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, the settlers “sprayed the two sisters, Dina and Dunya Yousef Jaradat—both in their thirties and with disabilities—with an unidentified liquid, causing severe redness in their faces and eyes.”

They were transferred to a medical center in the town for treatment.​​​​​​​

Nearly 960 Palestinians have been killed and more than 7,000 injured in attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, according to Palestinian figures.​​​​​​​

In July 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land illegal and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.