Three more Palestinians killed by Israelis in West Bank, Gaza

Israeli forces have killed three more Palestinians and injured dozens of others as tensions continue unabated in the occupied West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Palestine’s Ma’an agency said Israeli forces shot the Palestinian, whom they accused of attempting to slam his car into the military forces during a demonstration near the town of Silwad northeast of Ramallah.

Israeli media said the victim, identified as Muhammad Abd al-Rahman Ayyad, 21, was trying to ram his car into the entrance of the illegal Israeli settlement of Ofra located south of Silwad.

Reports, however, said that the Israelis opened fire at the man after his car bumped into a concrete barricade, adding that the Palestinian and his vehicle posed no threat at the time of the shooting.

The attack came hours after Israeli forces opened fire and injured a Palestinian motorist in Qalandiya near Ramallah. Israelis said the man was attempting to attack a military checkpoint there.

Israeli soldiers also shot dead another Palestinian protester in Ramallah, medical officials said.

Elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian protester as clashes erupted during an anti-Tel Aviv demonstration.

The Gazan Health Ministry identified the victim as 20-year-old Mahmud al-Agha. Some 41 Palestinians were also wounded during the scuffles.

The Friday assaults are the latest in a string of violence in the occupied territories, which has left nearly 130 Palestinians dead since early October.

Israeli troops on Thursday killed 15-year-old Abdullah Hussein Nasasra at the Huwwara military checkpoint near Nablus, accusing the teenager of attempting to stab an Israeli soldier.

On Friday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs voiced concerns over the excessive use of force and “extrajudicial killing” of Palestinians by Israeli forces. The body said that circumstances surrounding several of the Palestinian deaths over the past weeks remain disputed. 

Tensions have been simmering in the occupied territories since the Israeli regime’s imposition of restrictions in August on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

Palestinians are angry at increasing violence by Israeli settlers at the al-Aqsa Mosque compound and their attacks on Palestinian properties, saying the Tel Aviv regime seeks to change the status quo of the compound.

On Wednesday, Israeli rights group B’Tselem censured the regime’s military for using “excessive and unwarranted” force in killing Palestinians, saying this was tantamount to “summary execution.”

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