Israeli soldiers shot and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian during skirmishes in the West Bank on Monday, Israel said.
Mohammed Abu Salah, according to the Palestinian health ministry, was assassinated in the village of Silat Al-Harithiya, near the flashpoint town of Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel’s army claimed in a statement that its troops entered the area along with border police “to demolish the floor of the residence occupied by Muhammad Jaradat.”
According to a report, Jaradat and others were responsible for a recent fatal shooting of a Jewish settler in the West Bank.
According to the army, “violent protests” erupted before the planned demolition, “involving hundreds of Palestinians,” some of whom hurled bombs at Israeli troops.
“The troops detected a number of armed rioters and fired toward them to minimize the threat,” the army statement read, without explicitly addressing the teen’s death.
Israel routinely demolishes the homes of those it accuses of carrying out assaults against Israelis in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The technique, which frequently exacerbates tensions, has been denounced as a sort of collective punishment by critics. Israel maintains that it acts as a deterrent to assaults.
The army said that Jaradat was responsible for the death of Yehuda Dimentman, a 25-year-old religious student who was shot and killed in December in the West Bank.
