Brothers among five Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers

Five Palestinians, including two brothers, were killed and 21 injured in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday. Mufid Mahmoud Ekhlil, 44, was shot dead in the town of Beit Ummar, northern Hebron. Nine Palestinians were injured by bullets during the confrontations and taken to nearby hospitals, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said. The Israel Defense Forces said that “rioters” attacked soldiers with rocks and explosive devices after two IDF vehicles got stuck during an operational patrol near Beit Ummar.

It added: “The rioters also shot at the soldiers, who responded with riot dispersal means and live fire.” Jawad Abd Al-Rahman Rimawi, 22, was shot dead in Kufr Ein, near Ramallah. His brother, Thafer, 21, was shot and critically injured, and later died.

Rami Abu Ali, 45, from Betunia, west of Ramallah, was killed following a car accident involving a 20-year-old Israeli soldier, who was wounded.

Raed Na’asan, another Palestinian, was killed by Israeli fire when the troops stormed his Al-Mughair village in north-eastern Ramallah. The latest bloodshed took place amid a mounting surge of IsraeliPalestinian violence in the wake of a Jerusalem bombing last week that killed two Israelis. A general strike in Ramallah and some surrounding towns was called to mourn the deaths of the two brothers.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, Palestinian presidential spokesperson, said the Israeli government “bears full responsibility for these crimes and must be held accountable for them,” noting that successive right-wing governments have declared daily war on the Palestinian people. Ghassan Al-Khatib, a Palestinian political analyst and vice president of Birzeit University, told Arab News that there is a clear indication of an Israeli policy of escalation. Mohammad Shtayyeh, Palestinian prime minister, said that the deaths of the two brothers was a “heinous crime.”