WEST BANK (Dispatches) –
Zionist troops have killed a Palestinian near the city of Ramallah in the central part of the occupied West Bank, only a day after slaying a Palestinian youth elsewhere in the Tel Aviv-occupied territory.
The killing was carried out near the main entrance to the Beitin village, northeast of Ramallah, in early Thursday, the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC), a Palestinian-run media organization, reported.
It cited Zionist sources as claiming that the Palestinian had attacked the regime’s forces “with a hammer” before a Zionist trooper opened fire and killed him.
“The Israeli army said one soldier sustained mild facial wounds and received treatment at the scene,” it added.
On Wednesday, Zionist troops fatally shot a 20-year-old Palestinian youth at the al-Faraa refugee camp, near the city of Tubas in northern West Bank.
The Ramallah-headquartered Palestinian Authority’s health ministry said the victim, identified as Younis Ghassan Tayeh, was killed with a bullet to his chest.
According to Al Jazeera television network, Younis’s uncle, Mohammed Hassan Tayeh, said the shooting had been unprovoked, and that his nephew had been “in an open area, exposed to the soldiers” when he was shot by a sniper.
In another development, Zionist prime minister Yair Lapid has come out in full support of the soldier who shot dead Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in May, saying the regime’s forces have the “full backing” of the occupying regime, turning a deaf ear to international calls for punishment of those behind the cold-blooded murder.
Lapid claimed on Wednesday that the Zionist trooper behind the killing of Abu Akleh — who was wearing a vest clearly marked “Press” when she was shot — was “protecting himself” during exchanges of fire with Palestinians.
He said he would not allow the soldier to “be prosecuted just to receive applause from abroad.”
“No one will dictate our rules of engagement to us,” he said, adding that Zionist troops have the full backing of the regime and the Israelis.
Lapid was reacting to an Israeli military report that conceded for the first time that Abu Akleh, a U.S.-Palestinian citizen, was likely shot by a Zionist soldier.
Abu Akleh was killed on May 11 while covering a Zionist military raid in the West Bank city of Jenin,