Israeli troops shoot dead 14-year-old in West Bank village, Palestinians say

The Palestinian health ministry says a 14-year-old boy, Moataz Daghlas, was shot dead on Monday evening in the village of Burqa, north-west of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. His relatives say Israeli authorities are holding on to his body.

The Israeli military said its soldiers spotted what it described as several terrorists intending to hurl stones in an area where stones had previously been thrown at Israeli vehicles, and that troops fired towards them to remove the threat.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams treated two people with gunshot wounds, but that Israeli forces blocked their access to a third wounded person. It added that three of its volunteer paramedics were detained. Palestinian news agency Wafa identified the wounded as a 17-year-old shot in the abdomen and pelvis, and a 19-year-old man shot in the hand.

According to the UN, at least 98 Palestinians, 22 of them children, have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the start of the year. Over the same period, it says six Israelis, both security personnel and civilians, have been killed by Palestinians in the West Bank.

The rules of engagement for Israeli forces were reportedly broadened after the deadly Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, giving soldiers more discretion to use lethal force against a perceived threat. In June, the UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territory said it had verified the killing of 241 Palestinian children by Israeli security forces and settlers in the West Bank since then, most of them teenage boys and often accused of stone-throwing. The office said none of the children killed during confrontations with Israeli forces had posed an imminent threat to life, the only legal justification for lethal force in the West Bank under international law.