TULKARM: Israeli forces shot dead an 18-year-old Palestinian during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Friday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said, amid one of the deadliest periods in years.
The Israeli military said soldiers shot at suspects who fired and hurled explosives and stones at troops operating around the northern West Bank city of Tulkarm. It said one person was hit but reported no injuries to its forces.
The health ministry said Mahmoud Abu Sa’an was shot in the head in Tulkarm, during what the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said was a military operation in a nearby refugee camp that led to confrontations with Palestinians.
Some 40,700 Palestinians are registered with the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees in two camps in the Tulkarm area. They are Palestinian refugees, or their descendants, who were forced out or fled their homes during the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation.
Violence in the West Bank has worsened over the past 15 months amid stepped-up Israeli raids, Palestinian street attacks and rampages by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages.
The Islamist Hamas movement, which governs blockaded Gaza, mourned Abu Sa’an but did not claim him as a member. “Our people will continue their revolution until the occupation ends,” it said in a statement.
Israel occupied the West Bank, among territories the Palestinians want for an independent state, in a 1967 Middle East war. It has continued to build Jewish settlements there, which most countries deem illegal.
Israeli forces kill Palestinian youth during West Bank raid
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Israeli forces kill Palestinian youth during West Bank raid
- Violence in the West Bank has worsened over the past 15 months amid stepped-up Israeli raids
- Israel occupied the West Bank, among territories Palestinians want for independent state, in 1967
Pakistan IT exports rise nearly 20 percent to $2.61 billion in first seven months of fiscal year
- January ICT exports climb to $374 million year-on-year
- Sector remains country’s top-earning services export
KARACHI: Pakistan’s information and communication technology (ICT) export earnings rose 19.78 percent year-on-year to $2.61 billion in the first seven months of the fiscal year ending June 2026, the IT ministry said on Tuesday, highlighting the sector’s growing role as a source of foreign exchange.
Pakistan’s IT and IT-enabled services sector has emerged as one of the country’s fastest-growing sources of foreign exchange, generating over $3 billion annually and employing roughly a million freelancers in addition to formal software firms.
Unlike traditional manufacturing exports, the industry relies primarily on remote digital labor, from software development to back-office services, making it resilient during economic crises but constrained by payment barriers, talent migration and infrastructure reliability challenges. However, IT services require minimal imports and benefit from a large pool of young workers and freelancers, making the sector central to government plans to boost dollar inflows and reduce pressure on the balance of payments.
“ICT export remittances surged 19.78 percent, reaching $ 2.61 billion during the first seven months of FY 2025-26 compared to $ 2.18 billion achieved during the corresponding period last year,” the IT ministry said in a statement.
Monthly exports also expanded, with ICT services exports reaching $374 million in January 2026, up 19.5 percent from $313 million a year earlier, according to the ministry’s data.
The ministry said ICT remained the country’s highest-earning services sector, well ahead of “other business services,” which generated $1.21 billion over the same July-January period.
Pakistan has increasingly relied on technology exports, including software development, outsourcing and freelance services, to generate foreign exchange as the economy adjusts under structural reforms and tight import controls following a balance-of-payments crisis.
Officials say continued growth will depend on easing payment bottlenecks, improving digital infrastructure and expanding higher-value technology services beyond traditional outsourcing.
