Israeli troops have killed a 17-year-old Palestinian protester amid a surge in West Bank violence, coinciding with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The Israeli military spokesman said troops, led by a senior officer, opened fire after a crowd of young Palestinians who threw rocks at an army Jeep driving between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah, killing Mohammed al-Ksbeh.
An initial military investigation determined that the commander acted according to standing orders, believing his life was in danger, after first firing warning shots.
Palestinian doctors said the teenager had been shot twice and was pronounced dead on arrival at a local hospital.
According to Palestinian sources, al-Ksbeh, from the Kalandiya refugee camp, was attempting to climb the separation fence trying to get to Jerusalem to pray at the al-Aqsa mosque, when he was shot.
The victim, whose father works for the Palestinian intelligence service in the West Bank, lost two brothers more than a decade ago during clashes with Israeli troops.
Rafat Arian, a spokesman for president Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement in the West Bank, vowed that the Palestinian people would respond to the killing with popular resistance and jihad.
Support
Israeli education minister Naftali Bennett, head of the far-right Jewish Home, said the military commander had acted correctly.
“If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first. I completely support the commander of the Binyamin brigade who acted in the face of an enemy in order to defend my life, his soldiers’ lives and his own life,” he said.
The incident came as Palestinians marked the third Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, a period that has seen daily attacks against Israeli forces. Tension is also high ahead of the anniversary of last summer’s war in Gaza.
On Wednesday, thousands attended the funeral of Malachi Rosenfeld (27), a Jewish settler who was killed in a West Bank drive-by shooting, in an attack Israeli defence minister Moshe Ya'alon blamed on Hamas.
Palestinian Authority (PA) forces arrested 100 Hamas activists across the West Bank on Thursday night, in the biggest raid of its kind since 2007 when the Islamic Hamas seized control of Gaza from Fatah.
Hamas spokesman Husam Badran said the arrests were an attempt to stop the recent spate of Palestinian attacks against Israelis.
He accused PA security forces of collaborating with Israel and said Hamas held Mr Abbas personally responsible.