The ministry added that the two were left bleeding at the scene for an extended period before Palestinian medical teams were able to reach them, after which Israeli forces seized their bodies. [Getty]
At least two Palestinians, one of them a 15-year-old child, were killed by Israeli army fire early Monday in the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, as Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank continues to intensify alongside near-daily raids, arrests, and demolitions.
In a press statement, the Ramallah-based health ministry said that 15-year-old Reda Sami Hassan Awad and 19-year-old Issa Arafat Ismail Awad were shot near the illegal Karmei Tzur settlement, built on Palestinian land north of Hebron, before succumbing to their injuries.
The ministry added that the two were left bleeding at the scene for an extended period before Palestinian medical teams were able to reach them, after which Israeli forces seized their bodies.
Two others were also injured by live fire during confrontations in the same area. They were transferred to a hospital in Hebron, where their condition was described as stable, according to the health ministry.
The Israeli army claimed in a press statement that forces from Unit 636 opened fire on two individuals it claimed had thrown Molotov cocktails at the illegal Israeli settlement of Karmei Tzur.
It said both were killed at the scene, with no Israeli casualties reported, adding that troops searched the area for additional suspects.
As usual, Israel offered no evidence for these claims.
Hamas mourned the two killed in Beit Ummar, describing the incident as part of what it called Israel’s “systematic policy of killing” in the occupied West Bank, carried out in parallel with Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
In a press statement, Hamas said the increased Israeli violence would not break “the will of the resistance,” calling for continued confrontation at points of contact with Israeli forces and settlers.
It warned that ongoing raids, arrests, and demolitions were aimed at “imposing new realities on the ground,” arguing that such policies would only deepen instability rather than bring security.
Israeli violence
Elsewhere in the northern occupied West Bank, Israeli forces raided the village of Kafr Qallil, south of Nablus, at dawn on Monday.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a press statement that its teams treated a 50-year-old woman for bruises after she was beaten during the raid before she was transferred to the hospital.
Residents said extensive house searches and material damage, with no arrests confirmed.
In a separate development, Israeli forces continued demolition operations across the West Bank.
Two inhabited homes were demolished in the Umm Rukba area south of al-Khader, near Bethlehem, under the pretext of lacking building permits, according to the Palestinian Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission.
The Commission said in a press statement that the demolitions form part of a broader policy targeting Palestinian presence through repeated demolition orders and destruction of homes and structures.
In Kafr Aqab, north of Jerusalem, Israeli forces also demolished a residential house and an apartment building, according to the Jerusalem Governorate, which said the structures were also targeted for allegedly being built without permits.
These developments come amid what Palestinian officials describe as an accelerating campaign of military operations and settlement expansion across the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the outbreak of the war in Gaza on 7 October 2023.
The occupied West Bank has witnessed a sharp rise in Israeli military activity and settler violence since October 2023, with Palestinian officials warning of the risk of a broader explosion. More than 1,175 Palestinians have been killed and over 12,000 wounded during this period, alongside around 23,000 arrests and widespread displacement.
According to the Palestinian Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Israeli forces and settlers carried out 1,659 attacks in May in the occupied West Bank alone, including 1,108 by the army and 551 by settlers, underscoring what officials describe as an expanding and increasingly coordinated pattern of violence across the territory.
