RAMALLAH: Two Palestinians were killed early on Thursday in separate clashes with the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.
The ministry said in a statement that Samer Khaled, 25, from Al Ain camp in Nablus, suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the neck, and Yazan Afana, 26, from Qalandia camp outside Jerusalem, died after being shot in the heart.
The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Khaled was killed when Israel soldiers stormed Balata refugee camp near Nablus, in the northern West Bank.
Afana was killed during an operation in Al Bireh, near Ramallah, the health ministry said.
A Palestinian official said the death of Afana was linked to fire from Palestinian fighters, rather than the Israeli army.
The army said in a statement that its soldiers arrested six wanted men in operations throughout the West Bank overnight.
“During the operation (in Balata), the forces responded by firing after a shot was fired at them,” the army statement said.
“There are claims of a dead Palestinian,” it added.
The army said that during the operation in Al Bireh, its forces were attacked with stones and Molotov cocktails and responded using “riot dispersal means”.
It added that in this case too it had been informed of the death of a Palestinian.
On Tuesday, four Palestinians and two Israelis were injured in separate incidents near Nablus, the scene of recurrent violence in recent months.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, when it captured the territory from Jordan.
SETTLER LOSES APPEAL
Meanwhile, Israel’s supreme court on Thursday rejected an appeal by a Jewish settler sentenced to life in prison over a 2015 firebombing that killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents.
Eighteen-month-old Ali Dawabsha was burnt to death when the family home in the village of Duma in the Israeli-occupied West Bank was firebombed in July 2015.
His parents later died of their injuries. His brother Ahmed, four at the time of the attack, was the sole survivor from the immediate family but was left with severe burns.
Amiram Ben-Uliel, 25, was handed three life sentences in September 2020 over the killings.
Ben-Uliel, who was also found guilty of two counts each of attempted murder and arson, and conspiracy to commit a hate crime, had launched an appeal with Israel’s supreme court.
But on Thursday, three judges unanimously confirmed the verdict and sentence, according to a copy of the decision seen by AFP.
The judges dismissed the appeal, citing Ben-Uliel’s “confession”, a reconstruction of the crime scene and the racial connotations of the murders. – AFP
