RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Israeli forces on Friday shot dead two Palestinians including a 14-year-old in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Fourteen-year-old Adel Dawoud “succumbed to a critical wound sustained by live occupation (Israeli) fire to the head” in Qalqilya, in the northern West Bank, the health ministry said.
Another Palestinian was shot dead near the city of Ramallah, the ministry said in a statement.
The Israeli military said soldiers in Qalqilya fired at “a suspect who hurled Molotov cocktails at them.”
“A hit was identified,” the army told AFP.
Palestinians gather each Friday in parts of the West Bank to protest Israel’s occupation of the territory since the 1967 Six-Day War.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its medics treated 50 people in the area northwest of Ramallah who were hit by tear gas, rubber-coated bullets or were beaten.
Israel’s military said security forces responded to a “violent riot” in the area, during which a soldier was lightly hurt by a rock thrown at his head.
“The forces responded with riot dispersal means to restore order... including using live fire toward the two main rioters. Hits were identified,” the military said.
The Palestinian foreign ministry described the deaths as “executions.”
It accused Israel of trying to “drag the region into a cycle of violence and an explosion of the entire arena of conflict,” in a statement published by official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in recent months during Israeli military raids in the West Bank.
Those shot dead include militants as well as civilians, such as Palestinian-American reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed while covering a raid in May.