Two Palestinian teenagers shot dead and 20 arrested as Israeli forces continue deadly crackdown in occupied West Bank.
Israeli forces have shot dead two young Palestinians and wounded two others as they continued military incursions into the occupied West Bank.
Mustafa Sultan Abed, 22, and Ahmad Mohammad Shawahneh, 21, were shot dead near the Salem checkpoint in the city of Jenin, and ambulances were unable to reach the area to recover the bodies of the two slain youths, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported Saturday.
“What we know is that she was left to bleed out for about an hour before ambulances were allowed to arrive and care for her,” said Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.
“This is a violation of international law. Israeli soldiers are obliged by international law to provide life-saving assistance, even in a case like this.”
Two moderately injured Palestinians were taken to the town of Jenin, a Palestinian Red Crescent Society medic said, according to Wafa.
Al Jazeera’s Basravi said there had been four raids on towns and seven on villages across the occupied West Bank since Friday evening, with a village west of Ramallah the latest target, and a raid on Tulkarem ended hours ago.
“We know that Israeli forces have removed surveillance cameras from the street in front of Palestinian homes that residents use to monitor the raids,” he said.
“Six months felt like six years”
At least 20 Palestinians, including children and former prisoners, were arrested in Saturday’s Israeli raids, according to the non-governmental organization Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.
According to Wafa, Israeli soldiers arrested a young man in Tulkarem after beating him and searching his family’s home.
Since the war on Gaza began following attacks by Palestinian groups on October 7, Israel has arrested 8,480 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, some 3,660 of whom are being held illegally in administrative detention without facing charges.
Israeli forces are poised to illegally arrest many other Palestinians as they have conducted daily raids in occupied territories for nearly seven months.
Omar Assaf, a Palestinian activist who was jailed by Israel for six months, says the conditions in his cell were so terrible and the food portions so meager that he lost 29kg in prison.
“The amount of food we were given in prison was not enough. It was just enough to keep us from dying,” Assaf said from Ramallah after his release. “Israeli guards gave us two pieces of tomatoes for ten people.
“Those six months felt like six years. My fellow Palestinians and I were not prisoners or political prisoners. We were hostages.”
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are also regularly subjected to violent attacks by Israeli colonists. Wafa reported that in the latest attack on Saturday, a 20-year-old was physically attacked and beaten while tending a ship in Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank.