Israeli Forces Kill Palestinian Man in West Bank Clashes

The Palestinian Health Ministry reported late Monday that Zakaria al-Zaoul, a 21-year-old, was shot in the head in the town of Husan, located west of Bethlehem. The official Palestinian news agency Wafa stated that he was killed during clashes with the military.

The new Israeli crime came after the regime’s forces killed at least five Palestinians and wounded dozens of others in heavy clashes with Palestinian resistance fighters during a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin.

Israeli forces were backed by Apache helicopters in their raid on Jenin. The firing of missiles during the raid has been unprecedented in the past two decades.

Over the past months nearly 160 Palestinians, including 28 children, have lost their lives and many others have been arrested so far this year, as a result of these attacks.

Yesterday witnessed one of the most intense bouts of fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance fighters near the northern West Bank city of Jenin. Palestinian health officials confirmed that at least five Palestinians, including a 15-year-old boy, were killed, while over 90 others sustained injuries.

During the clashes, Israel employed helicopter gunships in the West Bank for the first time in several years. In response to the Israeli violence, Palestinian fighters detonated a bomb under an armored vehicle.

The regime’s forces have been also conducting near-nightly raids and killings in the northern part of the occupied West Bank, mainly in the cities of Jenin and Nablus, where new groups of Palestinian resistance fighters have been formed. While Israel claims that most of those killed were militants, there have been numerous cases of youths killed during protests against the incursions or individuals not involved in confrontations.

An official with the Palestine Liberation Organization has condemned the regime's latest practices as "an open war" waged on Palestinians.