Palestinian officials say Israeli forces kill two in West Bank

The Palestinian ministry of health said Israeli forces killed two Palestinians, including a teenager, on Monday in the West Bank city of Jenin which has seen repeated military raids.

The Israeli military, when contacted by AFP, said it was “looking into the reports”.

In a statement, the Ramallah-based health ministry said the two Palestinians were “shot dead by the occupation army”.

Violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has soared alongside the war in Gaza. Jenin is a bastion of Palestinian militant groups and from late August was a focus of large-scale Israeli raids.

The governor of Jenin, Kamal Abu al-Rub, said Israeli soldiers surrounded a house in the Jenin refugee camp adjacent to the city earlier Monday.

“The occupation (Israeli) soldiers climbed on the roofs of the houses and started shooting at anything that moved, resulting in the martyrdom of a minor and a young man in his 20s,” he told AFP.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said one of the dead was a 17-year-old boy.

Major Israeli raids in Jenin as well as Nur Shams and Balata continued into September, killing 36 Palestinians according to the United Nations and the Palestinian Authority.

Israel at the time called it a “large-scale counter-terrorism operation”.

“What is happening to the city of Jenin and its camp are systematic attacks aimed at destroying what we rebuild after each attack,” Rub said.

“Today, the occupation army destroyed streets. This is the 14th time since October 7 that the occupation has destroyed what we have rebuilt.”

Violence in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has soared since October 7, when Hamas militants from Gaza launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, sparking a devastating war in Gaza that continues.

Since then, at least 737 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian ministry of health.

At least 24 Israelis, including soldiers, have also been killed in Palestinian attacks or during military operations, according to official Israeli figures.