• Thirteen-year old boy dies after troops prevent him from reaching hospital
• Palestinian FM condemns soldiers seen singing at a mosque

JENIN: Israeli forces killed 11 people in a multi-day raid in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said on Thursday.

The latest death was of a 17-year-old child who the ministry said was shot in the chest by the Israeli army in Jenin.

In addition to 11 killed by Israeli forces, Palestinian health officials said a sick 13-year-old child also died after Israeli forces prevented him from reaching hospital.

Israeli troops launched their incursion into the northern city of Jenin and its refugee camp early on Tuesday and were still present on Thursday afternoon.

Speaking at the site where an Israeli drone strike killed three people, a resident told AFP the trio were unarmed civilians. At a home damaged during the ongoing raid, a boy said Israeli soldiers stole money, gold and mobile phones.

Since the start of the raid in the morning of Dec 12, Israeli forces have arrested hundreds of citizens, with the majority of them since released, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club, an advocacy group said in a statement.

Israel was not allowing ambulances to enter the camp to transport patients, Mahmoud Al-Saadi, director of the Palestinian Red Crescent in Jenin, told Reuters. “We have six ambulances, but we cannot even reach the patients who need to be transported to the hospital, some of whom need dialysis,” Al-Saadi said.

“The army did not allow us to enter,” despite attempts to coordinate with the Red Cross and the UN Palestinian relief agency, he said, adding that soldiers were also stationed outside the Jenin Governmental Hospital.

Soldiers occupied a mosque where singing Hanukkah songs to mark the Jewish holiday at a mosque in Jenin could be heard in the distance, a video circulating on social media showed.

However, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, condemned the Israeli raids in Jenin, adding that also slammed videos circulating on social media of Israeli soldiers singing songs at a mosque, Al Jazeera reported.

It also called for sanctions against far-right Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir after he came out in support of the soldiers who were singing in the mosque.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2023