RAMALLAH: A Palestinian teenager died on Thursday of gunshot wounds inflicted the day before, when the Israeli army opened fire during clashes in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Ahmed Zahi Dawoud, 16, was shot in the head on Wednesday in the village of Beita, near Nablus, the ministry and Nablus hospital, where he was taken for treatment, said.

The area has seen regular protests against illegal Israeli settlement expansion on Palestinian land.

On Wednesday, the Israeli army said a soldier had opened fire after he “spotted dozens of Palestinians” approaching troops as they “were securing the area of Givat Eviatar”, south of Nablus.

“One of the Palestinians ran towards the soldier and hurled a suspicious object at him, which exploded adjacent to the soldier,” the army said in a statement, adding there were no soldiers injured. “In response, the soldier operated to stop the suspect by firing into the air, and then by firing towards him. A hit was identified.”

Asked by AFP, the army gave no further details.

Official Palestinian news website Wafa said Dawoud was the fourth Palestinian killed near Beita in a month.

Hundreds of mourners gathered in the village for his funeral on Thursday, an AFP journalist reported.

The West Bank has been occupied by Israel since the six-day war of 1967 and, excluding annexed east Jerusalem, some 475,000 Israeli settlers now live alongside around 2.8 million Palestinians.

A Palestinian woman was also shot dead by Israeli troops on Wednesday, after what the army said was an attempt to ram Israeli soldiers with her car and attack them with a knife. Wafa identified the woman as Mai Afana, 29, from the town of Abu Dis, just outside Jerusalem.

On Wednesday afternoon, Palestinian militants again launched incendiary balloons from Gaza, hours after Israel retaliated for earlier launches.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2021