Israeli occupation army raid in West Bank kills Palestinian

JERICHO, Palestinian Territories — Israeli occupation forces killed a 19-year-old Palestinian in a pre-dawn raid in the West Bank on Wednesday, the Palestinian health ministry said, as violence in the occupied territory showed no sign of any letup.

Durgham Al Akhras was killed in a clash with Israeli soldiers raiding Aqabat Jaber refugee camp near the city of Jericho to carry out arrests, the ministry said.

Separately, the Palestinian health ministry announced the death of Yasser Mussa, 29, who was wounded during an Israeli raid on Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank late on Tuesday.

In total, four Palestinians were killed in the Jenin operation in which Israeli troops were backed by a drone, the ministry said, including three fighters.

They were identified by the ministry as Atta Yasser Atta Musa, Mahmoud Ali Saadi, Mahmoud Khaled Ararawi and Rafat Omar Khamayseh.

The Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, armed wing of the Islamist Hamas movement that controls the Gaza Strip, had said earlier that two of those killed in Jenin were its members.

The Islamic Jihad said one of the other two killed was a member of the armed group.

Hundreds of mourners attended the funerals of the dead on Wednesday.

Rising bloodshed 

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and its troops routinely carry out incursions into areas such as Jenin, which are nominally under the Palestinian Authority’s security control.

In July, the army carried out its biggest raid in years on the Jenin camp, in which 13 Palestinians including militants and children were killed.

One soldier died during the raid, also by Israeli fire “following an incident of mistaken identification”, the army said days later.

At least 238 Palestinians have been killed so far this year in incidents linked to the conflict.

In recent days, unrest has also surged in the Gaza Strip, with Palestinians holding protests that have turned violent along the border with Israel.

Palestinians have thrown rocks and explosives towards Israeli troops guarding the border fence, who have responded with tear gas and gunfire.

On Tuesday, one protester was killed by “occupation bullets”, said the health ministry in Gaza.

The Israeli army said it had used “riot dispersal means and sniper fire”.

The violence in Gaza follows an Israeli announcement late on Sunday that it would keep the Erez border crossing closed. The crossing remained shut on Wednesday, Palestinian officials said.

Thousands of Palestinian workers from Gaza have been prevented from entering Israel by the closure, which an Israeli NGO, Gisha, condemned as “collective punishment”.

Israel has issued work permits to some 18,500 Gazans, COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry body responsible for Palestinian civil affairs, said on Tuesday.