Israeli forces kill 6 Palestinians in West Bank raid: ministry

Ramallah, Palestinian Territories – AFP

Israeli forces shot dead six Palestinians Friday in a raid on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The Israeli army said it conducted a “counter-terrorism” operation.

The ministry said those who lost their lives included a 14-year-old boy and an 18 years old. It said they had been killed “by bullets from the occupation (Israel) in the Al-Fara refugee camp” near Tubas.

The Palestinian Red Crescent also reported having treated six people wounded by gunfire, one of them critically.

“Clashes escalated with the (Israeli) forces who stormed the camp amid intense fire and… explosions,” said the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The Israeli army said in a statement that during a joint military and Shin Bet counterterrorism operation, “two wanted suspects were apprehended”, listing both as “terrorists” who had previously been imprisoned.

“During exchanges of fire, a number of terrorists were killed,” it added.

Residents of the camp gathered for funeral processions on Friday morning, carrying the bodies of those killed in the raid through the streets.

The spot where one of them was shot had been turned into a makeshift memorial, with a pool of blood surrounded by stones and a Palestinian flag draped nearby.

On Wednesday, the Palestinian health ministry said four Palestinians, two of them teenagers, were killed in multiple Israeli operations around the West Bank, which has been illegally occupied by Israel since 1967.

– Spike in Jewish settler attacks –

The Palestinian Authority says Israeli fire and settler attacks in the West Bank have killed at least 263 Palestinians since Israel started war against Palestinians in Gaza.

This exceeds the entire death toll of 235, most of them Palestinians, killed in the West Bank last year.

According to the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Palestinians in the West Bank are now being shot more often in the head and torso rather than the limbs.

Without specifying who was responsible for the shootings, MSF’s international president Christos Christou said on Thursday there had been a “clear shift” in the injuries witnessed by MSF staff.

“When you see that shift in the trauma, you will see more and more dead people,” he said.