Israeli forces have gunned down five more Palestinian youths in violent attacks across the occupied West Bank as Gaza-based resistance groups continue a major operation against the regime.
Three of the victims were shot and killed during Israeli forces’ raids near the Qalandia checkpoint in the central part of the occupied territory on Sunday, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.
Local sources said confrontations broke out near the checkpoint, during which the regime’s forces opened direct fire at Palestinian youths, killing three and injuring eight others.
According to Wafa, a fourth youth, identified as Mohammed Abdel-Rahman Zghayyar, was killed by Israeli forces after they shot him in the chest during a separate attack in the northern West Bank city of al-Khalil, also known as Hebron.
Separately, another young Palestinian man lost his life at the entrance to the town of Beita, south of the city of Nablus also in northern part of the West Bank.
Ahmad Jibril, the head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Emergency and Ambulance Department, said paramedics transferred the youth with a critical gunshot wound to hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after.
More than 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces so far this year across the occupied territories, most of them in the West Bank.
The United Nations has described 2023 as the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since it began keeping track of fatalities almost two decades ago.
Sunday’s fatalities came after on Saturday, the regime’s forces killed six Palestinian youths, including a 13-year-old child, during attacks across the occupied West Bank.
The new bloodshed also occurred amid Operation al-Aqsa Storm, the biggest to be carried out by Palestinian resistance groups against the occupying regime in years, which began a day earlier.
It has featured heavy rocket barrages and surprise attacks by resistance fighters against Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied territories. So far, more than 700 Israelis have died as a result of the operation and thousands of others been injured.
Resistance leaders have described the operation as a decisive answer to the Israeli regime’s unabated campaign of bloodshed and destruction against Palestinians.
