The latest deaths bring the total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank since October 7 to 591.
Israeli forces have shot and killed two Palestinians, including a 17-year-old, in ongoing raids in the refugee camp of Balata, east of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Health Ministry confirmed in a press release that the occupation forces gunned down 24-year-old Bassam Hashash and injured 22 others during the raid on Saturday evening, reported the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
The camp was raided four times in 24 hours, with snipers stationed snipers on the rooftops of buildings as surveillance drones hovered over, triggering confrontations.
Urgent: A field volunteer EMT with the Palestine Red Crescent Society was injured while evacuating the wounded due to the occupation's shelling of citizens in Balata Refugee Camp, east of #Nablus. #NotATarget #IHL #WestBank pic.twitter.com/WreEuWl5HO
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) July 27, 2024
The heavily armed soldiers opened volleys of live ammunition towards local youths, killing Hashash with a live round in the chest, the report said.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said in a statement that Hashash was one of the movement’s fighters killed “while engaging in armed clashes with the invading zionist occupation forces.”
Earlier, the occupation forces killed Louay Mohammad Masha, aged 17, and injured nine others, two of them seriously, following an Israeli drone strike targeting a group of people in the camp.
West Bank Escalation – Two Palestinians Killed, Tulkarm Reinvaded by Israeli Forces
Saraya al-Quds, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, confirmed that Masha was one of its fighters, who was killed “following a treacherous assassination operation by a drone while confronting the occupation forces alongside a group of fighters from the Brigade.”
The latest deaths bring the total number of Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces in the West Bank since October 7 to 591, including 143 children, according to statistics from the Health Ministry, reported WAFA.
Ambulance Fired Upon
Also on Saturday, a 17-year-old was shot and injured by Israeli forces in the Balata camp.
WAFA said that the Palestine Red Crescent Society reported that its crew managed to transport the injured youth to the hospital after facing delays caused by Israeli forces, who fired at ambulance vehicles during the incident.
Israeli forces also surrounded a house in the camp and fired a shoulder-fired rocket at it. No injuries or arrests were reported in the attack.
In addition, Israeli bulldozers demolished parts of the Al-Arayshi Mall within the camp.
Six Arrested
Israeli forces also arrested at least six Palestinians in occupied West Bank in the past 24 hours, including two children and former prisoners, reported WAFA.
According to the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society, the arrests were carried out across various governorates, including Ramallah and Jenin.
Since Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza began, Israeli forces have detained 9,845 Palestinians, the report added.
Settler Attack
On Saturday, illegal Jewish settlers stole a Palestinian shepherd’s herd of sheep in Khirbet Yirza locality to the east of the northern West Bank city of Tubas.
The theft took place in Khirbet Yirza which has a population of around 150, the majority of whom are sheepherders and farmers. The village is isolated, having been cut off by the many Israeli barriers and army training camps that surround it, according to WAFA.
Approximately 6,200 Palestinians live in 38 communities in places earmarked for military use and have had to obtain permission from the Israeli authorities to enter and live in their communities.
In violation of international law, the Israeli occupation military not only temporarily displaces the communities regularly, but also confiscates their farmlands, and demolishes their homes and infrastructure from time to time.
On July 19, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful and should be brought to an end “as rapidly as possible.”
The Court also ruled by 14 votes to one, that Israel is under an obligation “to immediately cease all new settlement activities and to evacuate all settlers” from the occupied land.
(PC, WAFA)
