The local Palestinian health ministry said the 18-year-old was killed with multiple “serious” gunshot wounds.
Israeli forces shot and killed an 18-year-old Palestinian girl near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The ministry said in a statement that Musaab Nafal “died of severe injuries caused by occupation (Israeli) bullets near the village of Singil.”
The Israeli army said soldiers responded to “a report of stone throwing on the highway” that damaged “a few cars”. The soldiers “opened fire on the perpetrators. The attack was identified,” the statement said. The incident occurred four days after Israelis went to the polls in parliamentary elections.
Violence between Israelis and Palestinians has escalated in recent months, with Israeli forces conducting near-daily raids in the occupied West Bank. Israeli forces killed at least 29 Palestinians in the West Bank last month, making October the region’s deadliest month so far. The UN humanitarian office said on Tuesday that this would be the “deadliest year” since records of deaths in the West Bank began.
On Thursday, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians, including a 14-year-old boy, in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. About 475,000 Jewish settlers currently live in Jewish communities in the West Bank, which most of the international community considers illegal.
Israeli warplanes targeted a rocket production base in the Gaza Strip on Friday in what the Israeli military said was the first such bombing since Israel launched an offensive in the besieged enclave in August.
Deadly October
According to data compiled by Arab journalists, the highest number of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was in October 2022.
Israeli forces killed at least 29 Palestinians in the West Bank, making October the deadliest month in the region, the UN humanitarian office said on Tuesday, the highest number since a census of the entire West Bank began.
It was also the highest single-month death toll in the West Bank since last May, analysts said, amid nationwide protests against Israel’s attack on the Al-Aqsa mosque, the ousting of Sheikh Jarrah and the bombing of the Gaza Strip.
The last time the monthly death toll before 2021 exceeded 30 was between October 2015 and December 2015, when Palestinian stabbings peaked.
At least five of those who died last October after being shot by Israeli security forces were boys. The youngest of them was 12-year-old Mahmoud Mohammad Samudi from Jenin, who died in hospital on October 10 from a gunshot wound in an Israeli army raid on September 28. More than half of those killed in October were likely unarmed when they were shot, according to Palestinian officials and media.
15 people were shot as bystanders during protests, army raids or attacks by settlers protected by the army. On October 3, Israeli forces opened fire on three Palestinians in cars returning from work, killing two and injuring a third.
The Israeli army said it tried to ram the car, but witnesses and those injured deny the allegations. On October 23, a senior member of the armed Lion’s Den was killed in what appeared to be a targeted bombing in the Old City of Nablus in a rare incident.
