RAMALLAH: A Palestinian teenager was shot dead in clashes with the Israeli army on Wednesday near the city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Musab Firas Al-Tamimi, 17, was shot in the village of Deir Nizam north of Ramallah, it said.
His death took to 14 the number of Palestinians killed in unrest since US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital last month.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said dozens of Palestinians took part in a riot in Deir Nizam and soldiers spotted one with a gun before firing in his direction.
An investigation has begun into the incident, the spokeswoman said.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops arrested 22 Palestinians in various West Bank cities on Wednesday, according to a Palestinian source.
The Palestinian Prisoners Society said in a statement that Israeli soldiers stormed the cities of Hebron, Nablus, Jenin, Ramallah, El-Beira and Bethlehem and arrested 22 citizens.
The number of child arrests has substantially increased in the month following Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Ayed Abu Eqtaish, the accountability program director of Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP), said that between Dec. 6 and Dec. 19, 77 children under the age of 18 had been imprisoned, double the numbers from the previous month.
The Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) prisoners’ affairs commission said in a report released at the end of December that the youth arrests were concentrated in Hebron, Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
The commission said that Israeli forces particularly targeted young “men and boys under the ages of 18” and that dozens of youths detained in Ofer were “subject to barbaric attacks and brutality during their detention and interrogation process.”