Israeli forces shot and killed Palestinian teenager Oday Salah in the northern occupied West Bank district of Jenin on Thursday morning. Since the beginning of the year, Israel has killed 149 Palestinians, 34 in the Jenin area.
Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian teenager in the northern occupied West Bank district of Jenin on Thursday morning, just 24 hours after two Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed in confrontations in Jenin.
17-year-old Oday Salah was fatally shot with a bullet to the head after Israeli forces raided his village of Kafr Dan in the predawn hours of Thursday morning, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Wafa News Agency reported that the Israeli army raided the village and stationed snipers on rooftops. The raid sparked confrontations in the town, during which time the soldiers opened fire at a number of young men “who attempted to block their passage and protested the raid,” Wafa said.
Salah was pronounced dead at the Khalil Suleiman Government Hospital in Jenin, and three others were injured.
The raid on Kafr Dan targeted the homes of Ahmed Ayman Abed, 23, and Abdulrahman Hani Abed, 22, cousins from Kafr Dan, who were killed the day before after they carried out a shooting at an Israeli military checkpoint outside Jenin that resulted in the death of an Israeli army officer.
Both men’s bodies were confiscated by Israeli forces, as part of Israel’s policy of withholding the bodies of Palestinians accused of carrying out attacks against Israelis.
According to rights groups, the practice amounts to a violation of international humanitarian and human rights law, and amounts to collective punishment on the families of the slain Palestinians.
According to Middle East Eye , Ahmed was an officer with the Palestinian security services’ intelligence branch, and Abdul Rahman worked in agriculture and construction. The two were killed at the Jalama checkpoint after a gunfight with Israeli soldiers stationed in the area.
During the raid on Kafr Dan on Thursday morning, Wafa reported that Israeli forces raided the homes of Ahmed and Abdulrahman’s families, subjecting them to hours of “harsh interrogation.”
The soldiers also reportedly ransacked the homes and took measurements to map out the houses, allegedly in preparation for demolition.
Israel has a policy of punitively demolishing the homes of the Palestinians accused of carrying out attacks against Israelis as a “deterrence” measure against future attacks. The widely-criticized policy has been condemned by rights groups as a form of collective punishment.
Six Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces over the past week, four of whom were from the Jenin area.
On Sunday September 11th, 24-year-old Mustafa Hussein Abu Jelda succumbed to wounds he sustained five days prior during an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp that killed one Palestinian and wounded over a dozen others.
On September 8th, Haitham Mubarak, 16, was killed after he was shot with live ammunition during an Israeli raid on the Ramallah-area town of Beitin. According to Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP), Mubarak’s body was confiscated by Israeli forces.
“Under international law, intentional lethal force is only justified in circumstances where a direct threat to life or serious injury is present. However, investigations and evidence collected by DCIP regularly suggest that Israeli forces use lethal force against Palestinian children in circumstances that may amount to extrajudicial or willful killings,” DCIP said.
According to the group, 38 Palestinian children have been killed in the occupied Palestinian territory since the start of the year, including 21 who were shot and killed in the West Bank.
One day before Mubarak was killed, Israeli forces shot and killed 21-year-old Younis Ghassan Tayeh during a raid on the Far’a refugee camp in Tubas in the northern West Bank.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that 149 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the year. Of those killed, 34 were from the Jenin area.
Israel has stepped up its military operations in Jenin since the start of the year, as part of a wider crackdown on armed resistance groups that have continued to grow in the city.