Palestinian Teenager Killed in Clash With IDF in West Bank
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A Palestinian teenager was killed on Monday in a clash with Israeli soldiers near the West Bank town of Bethlehem, a Palestinian hospital source said.
Violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Jerusalem has intensified in the past few weeks and the teenager’s reported death was the latest in a series of incidents that has raised fears of wider escalation.
A Bethlehem hospital said a 13-year-old boy identified as Abdel-Rahman Abeidallah of the nearby al-Aidah refugee camp died of a bullet wound to the heart.
The Israeli military had no initial information and a spokeswoman said she was checking for details.
Recent bloodshed has included a drive-by shooting that killed an Israeli couple in the West Bank on Thursday and an arson attack that killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents in July.
Other incidents involving Palestinian stone-throwers and Israeli security forces continued without respite on Monday.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met security chiefs to discuss more action to tackle the rising violence in East Jerusalem, which includes the walled Old City, and the West Bank, areas that Israel captured in a 1967 war.
In broadcast remarks, Netanyahu said the new measures would include speeding up the razing of homes of Palestinian attackers and banning those who incite violence from Jerusalem’s Old City.
Tensions have been inflamed in particular by frequent clashes between Palestinian stone-throwers and Israeli security forces at Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque compound.
Palestinians have said they fear increasing visits by Jewish groups to al-Aqsa, revered by Jews as the site of biblical temples, are eroding Muslim religious control there.
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed in April 2014.
