Mourners carried the body of a Palestinian teenager through the hills of the West Bank's largest city on Thursday, after he was killed by Israeli military fire, marking the latest casualty in a surge of violence this month.
Details of the Incident
Ibrahim Al-Khayyat died after being shot in the chest and abdomen in Hebron, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Ministry of Health and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. Relatives told The Associated Press that he was heading to a minimarket when he was shot on Wednesday.
Israel's military stated that soldiers fired on Palestinians during an operation in Hebron after stones were hurled toward them. The military described the action as a response to a rock-throwing attack.
Broader Context of Violence
Mumtaz Shabaneh, Al-Khayyat's schoolteacher, said the killing reflected a wider pattern of violence against Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank. He described it as an attempt “to break our will and undermine our perseverance to remain steadfast on this land.”
Al-Khayyat was the second Palestinian killed on Wednesday. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that Abdulhalim Hamad died during an Israeli raid in Silwad, northeast of Ramallah. WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency, said Hammad, 37, was killed at home by Israeli soldiers.
The two deaths bring the total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied West Bank this year to over 40, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Teenagers have borne a large share of the violence, with three killed last week alone.
Gaza Drone Strike
In a separate incident, a drone strike hit Gaza City, killing three people, according to health officials at Shifa Hospital, which received the bodies. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the strike.
While large-scale fighting across the enclave has eased since a shaky ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in October, Israel has carried out near-daily strikes across Gaza, where more than 820 Palestinians have been killed, according to figures from the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry, part of the Hamas-led government, maintains casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts, though it does not provide a breakdown of civilians and militants.
