WEST BANK (Dispatches) –
Zionist troops have shot dead a Palestinian boy near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, the fourth since Wednesday.
The 17-year-old teenage boy, identified as Odeh Mohammad Odeh, was shot dead in the vicinity of the separation wall in the village of al-Midya, west of Ramallah, on Thursday afternoon, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said in a brief statement.
The ministry said Odeh was brought to Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the chest, but he succumbed to his wounds despite attempts to save his life.
Odeh was the fourth Palestinian shot and killed by Zionist troops in the West Bank since Wednesday, and the 63rd since January.
Later on Thursday, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh issued a statement, condemning the killing of Odeh by the regime troops as well as “all the horrific crimes committed against our children and loved ones.”
Shtayyeh said the perpetrators of such crimes are determined to murder Palestinians.
The Palestinian prime minister noted that Odeh is another child killed in continuation of Zionist crimes, which include a long list of targeting children, women and the elderly, “as a result of the international community’s continuation of its double-standard policies that encourage the perpetrators to continue their crimes.”
The development comes as the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has called on the international community to take immediate action to protect Palestinian children from the occupying regime’s brutality, saying they are suffering both in Palestine and abroad due to the regime’s occupation of their homeland.
Hamas made the appeal on “the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression” on Saturday, urging the international community to save Palestinian children through criminalizing the occupation and putting an end to it, the Palestinian Information Center reported.
“The children of Palestine are victims of aggression and brutal occupation,” the movement said in a statement.
“This day has come once again as a reminder of the Palestinian children’s suffering and pain at home, in refugee camps, and abroad and to call upon the world to pay attention to the appalling aggression that is still practiced by the Zionist occupation against our children,” it said.
Hamas pointed out that more than 88 Palestinian children had been killed by Zionist troops between 2021 and 2022, adding that “over 170 Palestinian children are being held in Israeli jails, where they are subjected to psychological and physical torture.”