Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinians on Saturday morning at Al-Hamra military checkpoint in the Jordan Valley. According to local media, Ali Abu Mariam, 26, and Said Abul Wafa, 38, were shot “while trying to carry out a stabbing attack.”

Palestinian Safa and Maan news agencies, however, reported confirmed accounts of eyewitnesses who insist that the Israeli soldiers at the checkpoint asked the two Palestinians to get out of their vehicle and then shot them in what has been described as an “execution”. Both men came from the ‎West Bank‬ city of Jenin‬.‬

Safa and Maan also reported that Palestinian paramedics begged the Israeli soldiers to be allowed to offer first aid and evacuate the two men before they died. The soldiers, however, prevented this and insisted on leaving them to bleed to death.

The bodies of the two victims were handed over to the Palestinian Authority and taken to the Turkish Hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Tubas.

Israeli website Ynet News reported army sources which claimed that the two Palestinians left their vehicle with knives in their hands and headed towards the soldiers. It is claimed that the soldiers believed that the men were going to try to stab them and so they took preventive action and opened fire.

In separate incidents, 14 Palestinians were wounded on Friday during demonstrations along the eastern borders of the Gaza Strip. A spokesman for the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Ashraf Al-Qidra, said that all 14 were wounded in the legs. A senior Palestinian security source told Anadolu news agency that Israel has posted dozens of snipers along the border to shoot at demonstrators within Gaza.

(MEMO)