Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian teenager on Wednesday during clashes that broke out in a refugee camp in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The ministry identified the Palestinian as 18-year-old Osama Adawi. He is one of more than 100 Palestinians killed so far in the West Bank in 2022, the worst bout of violence in seven years.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said Adawi had been shot in the abdomen at al-Aroub refugee camp in the southern West Bank. The Israeli military said its troops opened fire on a group of Palestinians who were throwing stones at Israeli motorists on Route 60, the territory’s main north-south highway.
Awakened history hits Middle East as Palestinians accused of erasing history
Tensions are rising across the West Bank and East Jerusalem as Israeli forces continue to hunt the Palestinian shooter. Thousands of Jewish worshipers have also flocked to Jerusalem to celebrate his week-long holiday of Sukkot, plunging the city into crisis.
As clashes broke out in East Jerusalem’s Shuafat refugee camp Wednesday night, Palestinians vehemently protested the large presence of Israeli police.
A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, Nabil Abu Rudyneh, said President Mahmoud Abbas was continuing “intensive contact” to defuse the situation, adding that the Israeli provocation “put the region at risk of an explosion.” It will jeopardize,” he warned.
In East Jerusalem, Palestinian shops and businesses were closed to protest an Israeli police raid that sparked violent clashes between police and Palestinian protesters.
Police are investigating Shuafat, a hardscrabble camp for Palestinian refugees on the outskirts of Jerusalem, looking for suspects in the deadly shooting attack that killed a soldier at a checkpoint on Saturday. For days, police set up checkpoints and deployed groups of armed police to question residents. Checkpoints block the entrances and exits of the area and interfere with the daily lives of residents.
A general strike was called to protest the repression. Schools and shops are closed across East Jerusalem, including the Old City, and colorful shops catering to tourists and locals abound.
“Showing solidarity with Shuafat means more than a day’s income,” said Annan Sabah, a butcher in the Old City. “The camp has been closed and surrounded for days. We have been closed to say it is a collective punishment.”
Beheaded head, severed torso of gay Palestinian man found on West Bank roadside
Tensions have been heightened by months of nighttime raids carried out by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, which began after a series of attacks against Israelis earlier this year. of Palestinians have been killed in violence, the highest death toll since 2015. Israel said most of those killed were militants, but some local youths and civilians who protested the attacks were also killed in the violence.
The raid sparked a series of shooting attacks against Israelis in the West Bank in recent weeks, including one near the Palestinian city of Nablus, which killed an Israeli soldier on Tuesday.
The Israeli military said it had blocked roads in and out of the city and placed roadblocks to search for the shooters. It said it would continue to allow and escort Jewish worshipers to visit the Jewish shrine in Nablus, which has been a spark of violence, despite tensions.
Israeli Policy Imposes New Restrictions, Tightens Constraints on West Bank
Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians are seeking those territories for future independent states.