A Palestinian militant was killed by the Israeli army on Saturday after it started shooting in the area of an Israeli military checkpoint outside East Jerusalem in the West Bank, the swath of territory Israel has occupied since 1967 and which Palestinians claim as own. Israeli police said the Palestinian militant had injured an Israeli agent before being killed. The al Aqsa Martyrs armed group, associated with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s party, said the slain militant was a member and He diedthe Palestinian Authority news agency, identified him as an 18-year-old boy from Kafr Aqab, the northernmost Palestinian Arab neighborhood of East Jerusalem, very close to the Qalandiya checkpoint area where the boy is been killed.
It is the latest in a series of violent episodes that took place this week in the West Bank, which resulted in the deaths of 15 Palestinians and 4 Israelis. In general, in the last year and a half, the clashes between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank have intensified significantly: since the beginning of 2023, at least 160 Palestinians and 25 Israelis have died in clashes between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.