Israeli troops kill Palestinian in W. Bank
JERUSALEM: A Palestinian was shot dead by Israeli forces during a clash on Saturday in a West Bank town neighbouring annexed Arab East Jerusalem, sources on both sides said.
Israel’s border police said that during an operation in Al Eizariya “a riot erupted” and its forces responded with fire towards a suspect attempting to throw a Molotov cocktail at them.
The Palestinian health ministry identified the dead man as Fayez Damdum, 18, and said he was killed by a gunshot to his neck.
The border police said that during the clash “stones and explosive devices were thrown at the forces, who responded with riot dispersal means.”
Israel has launched hundreds of operations in the occupied West Bank since March.
The raids, many in the northern West Bank, have sparked clashes that have killed dozens of Palestinians.
On Thursday, a seven-year-old Palestinian boy died, possibly ater falling off a building, as soldiers were carrying out arrests of stonethrowing youths in Tuqu, a village near Bethlehem.
The US State Department said on Friday it supported “a thorough and immediate investigation into the circumstances” of the boy’s death.
Unmanned surveillance aircraft have become an integral part of Israel’s 15-year-old blockade of the impoverished enclave, and 2.3 million Palestinians endure their incessant hum.
Gaza teenager Bissam says she has trouble sleeping and concentrating as the buzzing sound of Israeli military drones above the crowded Palestinian enclave drives her to distraction.
When she is at home in the cramped family apartment, the 18-year-old said she feels that “the drone is constantly with me in my bedroom -- worry and fear don’t leave our homes.
“Sometimes I have to put the pillow on my head so I don’t hear its buzz,” she said, adding that the drone noise gives her headaches.
Bissam, whose family requested their surname be withheld for security reasons, said that together with the street noise, the drones create an unbearable cacophony.
“At night I try to review the lessons for my exams, but I can’t read because of this annoying racket,” she said from the cramped Gaza City apartment she shares with her parents and five siblings.
Each month, Israel uses drones above Gaza for 4,000 flying hours -- the equivalent of deploying five of the unmanned aircraft permanently in the sky -- the military said.