AL-QUDS (Dispatches) -- Israeli forces have shot dead a 19-year-old youth during a raid near Jenin, marking the second killing in the occupied West Bank in two days as Israel accelerates its annexation plans in the territory.
The military confirmed the killing of the young man, identified as Ahmed Jihad Barahmeh, in the town of Anzah on Wednesday, claiming its forces shot him after he “threw an explosive device” at them.
The victim was reportedly picked up by a Palestine Red Crescent Society crew after being shot in the chest, but later died of his wounds.
Barahmeh’s death follows the killing of Saeed Murad al-Nasan, who was 20, by armed settlers in the village of al-Mughayyir, north of Ramallah.
Israeli forces have carried out near-daily raids in the West Bank since the start of their war on Gaza, with a sharp escalation of violence this month following Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich’s call to annex the territory.
Since Israel began its genocidal war, it has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli settlers have also been emboldened, rampaging in Palestinian communities with impunity, backed by the military, attacking and killing residents and burning property and olive groves. There is rarely, if ever, any legal recourse for Palestinians.
Two Israeli settlers assaulted the mayor of Beita, a Palestinian town near Nablus, in the West Bank, on Wednesday, according to the Wafa news agency.  
Attacks by Israeli settlers have injured 540 Palestinians in the West Bank this year, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).