Israeli army kills teenager amid intensified raid in the occupied West Bank. Israel-Palestine conflict news

The army deployed snipers on rooftops around Balata camp during the deadly raid, which killed Muhammad Medhat Amin Amer.

Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian teenager and wounded nine others in the Balata refugee camp, as Israeli forces stepped up raids in the occupied West Bank.

Muhammad Medhat Amin Amer, 18, was shot dead during an overnight raid on the camp on the outskirts of the city of Nablus, north of the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Saturday.

Nine people are in “critical condition” after being injured in the raids that began on Friday night and led to violent confrontations, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that Israeli troops entered the camp from the Awarta checkpoint, deploying “snipers on the rooftops of nearby buildings”.

In a statement on Saturday, the Israeli military said troops fired on “terrorists” who had “thrown explosives, Molotov cocktails and stones, and fired fireworks at the forces”.

Violence has intensified in the occupied West Bank since the war broke out in the Gaza Strip following Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023.

Since then, at least 815 Palestinians have been killed in the area by Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah.

Over the same period, at least 25 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks in the occupied West Bank, according to official Israeli figures.

Elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, Wafa reported that a Palestinian child was wounded by bullet fragments on Friday during an Israeli military attack on homes in the town of Tuku, southeast of Bethlehem.

Israeli forces also carried out separate raids in three cities in the Hebron area of ​​the occupied West Bank.

Local sources told Wafa that Israeli troops set up checkpoints in the town of Idhna, west of Hebron, where they stopped vehicles and checked identity cards.

In ash-Shuyukh, north of Hebron, Israeli patrols removed Palestinian flags from the city’s streets. In a separate operation, troops cordoned off areas of the nearby Aroub refugee camp.

Palestinian Authority raids

Since December, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has also been raiding the Jenin refugee camp in the north of the territory, saying they seek to crack down on armed Palestinian resistance.

Clashes have been occurring for several weeks, in which both civilians and members of the Palestinian Authority security forces have been killed.

The family of a Palestinian father and son killed in the camp on Friday blamed the PA for their deaths.

However, PA security forces issued a statement denying that their forces were present in the area. Instead, he attributed the deaths to fighters in the Jenin refugee camp.

The Jenin Battalion armed group issued a statement blaming the PA for the killing of at least 16 Palestinian civilians since October 2023.

A member of the Palestinian General Intelligence Service also died in the camp on Friday, identified in reports as Major Rashid Shako.

According to Reuters news agency, a PA official described the killing as an “accidental incident”.