Ramallah [Palestine], June 26: There was renewed violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.
Several dozen Israelis entered a village north of Ramallah and set fire to Palestinians' vehicles and buildings, according to reports.
The Israeli army said there were confrontations between Israelis and Palestinians and that the security forces had been deployed to break up the violence. One Israeli citizen was arrested. One soldier was injured by a stone thrown at him.
There have been several outbreaks of violence by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank since a fatal attack by two Palestinians on four Israelis in the region on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, in a tragic incident at the Qalandia military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian teenager was fatally shot, according to reports from the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Seventeen-year-old IshaqHamdiAjlouni was killed by Israeli forces after opening fire at the checkpoint on Saturday, causing minor injuries to a security guard, as stated by the agency. Ajlouni was claimed as a member by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority and exercises limited self-rule in the occupied territory.
In a statement, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades declared, "Our heroic fighters... were able to directly target occupation [Israeli] soldiers at the Qalandia checkpoint." Authorities revealed that the young assailant, hailing from the KufrAqabneighborhood just north of the checkpoint, utilized an M-16 rifle during the attack.
The Qalandia checkpoint serves as a crucial crossing point for Palestinians traveling between occupied East Jerusalem and Ramallah, the administrative center of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
The West Bank has been engulfed in violence throughout the past week following Israeli forces' incursion into the Jenin refugee camp to apprehend two suspects on Monday.
On Friday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, criticized Israel's utilization of "advanced military weaponry" during the raids, while the United States stated its active engagement with Israel in response to the surge in violence.
Israeli forces employed helicopter gunships during the Jenin camp operation, marking the first such deployment in the West Bank in two decades. The gunships subjected the camp to bombardment, resulting in casualties and injuries to 91 individuals.
One day after the deadly raid, Palestinian gunmen targeted and killed four Israeli settlers at a petrol station located between the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Nablus.
Subsequently, Israeli settlers rampaged through Palestinian towns, setting fire to properties and vandalizing cars, leading to the death of one Palestinian individual.
Tensions in the region have been running high as Israel has intensified its military operations in the occupied territory in recent months under its most right-wing government to date.
More than 700,000 Israelis reside in settlements considered illegal under international law in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel during the 1967 War.
Source: Qatar Tribune
