Hebron, West Bank — A young man and a teenage boy were shot dead by Israeli forces just after midnight near the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, according to local sources cited by Quds News Network.
Who Were the Victims
The two were identified as Issa Arafat Ismail Awad, 19, and Reda Sami Hassan Awad, 15, both from Beit Ummar.
Conflicting Accounts
Israeli media outlets claimed that soldiers opened fire on the pair after they threw firebombs at settler vehicles near the Karmei Tzur settlement, which sits on land belonging to Beit Ummar. Local media reported that Israeli forces held the bodies of both victims afterward and prevented medical crews from reaching them.
Part of a Recurring Pattern
Beit Ummar has faced repeated military raids throughout the war, and a number of its residents have been killed since the start of the war in Gaza, some during confrontations with Israeli forces and settlers. According to the report, escalating attacks by Israeli forces and settler militias have coincided with the wider war in Gaza and military operations in Iran and Lebanon; the Palestinian Ministry of Health says 70 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of this year.
The report also notes that Israeli forces have withheld dozens of bodies of Palestinians killed in recent years, a practice rights groups say denies families their funeral rites and constitutes a form of collective punishment against Palestinian society.
Hamas condemned the killings in a statement, describing the continued deaths of Palestinians as part of what it called the “hideous crimes” of the Israeli government, and residents in Hebron and across the West Bank called for an escalation of resistance activity at friction points with Israeli forces.