BURQIN, West Bank: Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian teenager during an arrest raid in the village of Burqin in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials said on Saturday.
A Reuters witness said about 200 Palestinians were throwing stones at Israeli military vehicles when a shot was heard, adding that a wounded person was then carried to a car.
Israel’s military, which said it was checking the report, said its forces had been searching in Burqin for suspects involved in the fatal drive-by shooting of an Israeli rabbi from a nearby settlement on Jan. 9.
Israeli forces in the adjacent city of Jenin last month shot and killed a Palestinian gunman whom they suspected of involvement in the rabbi’s shooting.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said the teenager killed on Saturday was 19 years old, while the hospital in Jenin where he was taken said he had been shot in the head.
The Israeli military said rioting had broken out while troops were apprehending several suspects connected with the shooting of the rabbi and troops had responded with non-fatal “riot dispersal means.”
Tensions in the region have risen since US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December, since when at least 20 Palestinians and one Israeli have been killed.
Trump’s reversal of decades of US policy enraged Palestinians, who want to create an independent state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Israel captured those territories in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed East Jerusalem in a move not recognized internationally. It says the entire city is its eternal, indivisible capital. It pulled out of Gaza in 2005.
US-led peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians broke down in 2014. A bid by Trump’s administration to restart negotiations has shown no real signs of progress.
Palestinian teen dies in Israeli West Bank arrest raid: Health officials
Palestinian teen dies in Israeli West Bank arrest raid: Health officials
Ankara city hall says water cuts due to ‘record drought’
- Dam reservoir levels have dropped to 1.12 percent and taps are being shut off for several hours a day in certain districts on a rotating schedule in Ankara
ANKARA: Water cuts for the past several weeks in Turkiye’s capital were due to the worst drought in 50 years and an exploding population, a municipal official told AFP, rejecting accusations of mismanagement.
Dam reservoir levels have dropped to 1.12 percent and taps are being shut off for several hours a day in certain districts on a rotating schedule in Ankara, forcing many residents to line up at public fountains to fill pitchers.
“2025 was a record year in terms of drought. The amount of water feeding the dams fell to historically low levels, to 182 million cubic meters in 2025, compared with 400 to 600 million cubic meters in previous years. This is the driest period in the last 50 years,” said Memduh Akcay, director general of the Ankara municipal water authority.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called the Ankara municipal authorities, led by the main opposition party, “incompetent.”
Rejecting this criticism, the city hall says Ankara is suffering from the effects of climate change and a growing population, which has doubled since the 1990s to nearly six million inhabitants.
“In addition to reduced precipitation, the irregularity of rainfall patterns, the decline in snowfall, and the rapid conversion of precipitation into runoff (due to urbanization) prevent the dams from refilling effectively,” Akcay said.
A new pumping system drawing water from below the required level in dams will ensure no water cuts this weekend, Ankara’s city hall said, but added that the problem would persist in the absence of sufficient rainfall.
Much of Turkiye experienced a historic drought in 2025. The municipality of Izmir, the country’s third-largest city on the Aegean coast, has imposed daily water cuts since last summer.
