The army sets up snipers on the roofs surrounding the Balata camp in a fierce raid that killed Muhammad Medhat Amin Amer.
The Israeli army killed a Palestinian teenager and injured nine others in the Balata refugee camp, as Israeli forces intensify raids in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Health Ministry announced Saturday that Muhammad Medhat Amin Amer, 18, was shot dead during a nighttime raid on the camp, located on the outskirts of the city of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank.
Nine people are in “critical condition” after being injured during the raid, which began Friday evening and sparked violent clashes, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The Palestinian Wafa news agency reported that Israeli soldiers entered the camp from the Awarta checkpoint, deploying “snipers on the roofs of surrounding buildings.”
In a statement on Saturday, the Israeli military said soldiers fired on “terrorists,” who “threw explosives, Molotov cocktails and stones, and fired fireworks at the forces.”
Violence in the occupied West Bank has intensified since war broke out in the Gaza Strip following attacks by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Since then, at least 815 Palestinians have been killed in the territory by Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah.
During the same period, Palestinian attacks in the occupied West Bank killed at least 25 Israelis, according to official Israeli figures.
Elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, Wafa reported that a named Palestinian child was injured in the eye by bullet fragments during an Israeli military raid on homes in the town of Tuqu, southeast of Bethlehem, Friday.
Israeli forces also carried out separate raids in three towns in the Hebron area of the occupied West Bank.
Local sources told Wafa that Israeli soldiers set up checkpoints in the town of Idhna, west of Hebron, where they stopped vehicles and checked ID cards.
In Ash-Shuyukh, north of Hebron, Israeli patrols removed Palestinian flags from the city’s streets. In another operation, soldiers sealed off parts of the neighboring Arroub refugee camp.
Palestinian Authority raids
Since December, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has also been carrying out raids in the Jenin refugee camp, located in the north of the territory, claiming to want to suppress Palestinian armed resistance.
Clashes have taken place for weeks, during which civilians and members of the Palestinian Authority security forces have been killed.
The family of a Palestinian father and son killed in the camp on Friday blamed the Palestinian Authority for their deaths.
However, Palestinian Authority security forces issued a statement denying any presence of their security forces in the area. Instead, they blamed the deaths on fighters in the Jenin refugee camp.
The Jenin Battalion armed group released a statement accusing the Palestinian Authority of killing at least 16 Palestinian civilians since October 2023.
A member of the Palestinian general intelligence service, identified in reports as Major Rashid Shaqo, also died in the camp on Friday.
An AP official called the killing an “accidental incident,” according to the Reuters news agency.
