BURQIN, West Bank: The Israeli occupation regime’s soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian teenager in the village of Burqin in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian health officials said on Saturday.
The regime’s military said its forces had been searching in Burqin for suspects involved in the fatal drive-by shooting of a colonist from a nearby colony on January 9.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said the teenager killed on Saturday was 19 years old, while the hospital in Jenin where he was taken said he had been shot in the head.
Israeli occupation forces in the adjacent city of Jenin last month shot and killed a Palestinian whom they had also suspected of involvement in the colonist’s shooting.
Tensions in the region have risen since US President Donald Trump recognised occupied Jerusalem as the Israeli regime’s capital in December. Since then at least 20 Palestinians and one Israeli have been killed.
Trump’s reversal of decades of US policy enraged Palestinians, who want to create an independent state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Israel captured those territories in the 1967 Middle East War and annexed East Jerusalem in a move not recognised internationally. US-led peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians broke down in 2014. A bid by Trump’s administration to restart negotiations has shown no real signs of progress.
