Tel Aviv (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – The Israeli military announced on Tuesday that it had killed two assailants, claiming they attacked soldiers in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Authority identified the victims as a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old.
The army stated that the initial attack occurred on Monday evening near Hebron in southern Palestinian territory, where a female soldier sustained minor injuries in a car ramming incident.
In a statement, it said that after pursuing the attacker, Israeli forces tried to arrest the suspect, during which they shot and killed him. The attacker
“attempted to flee while endangering the forces, who responded with live fire,”
the military statement said.
The Israeli military reported that the second attack occurred near Ramallah in the central West Bank, an area occupied by Israel since 1967. According to a brief army statement, soldiers were sent to the vicinity of the Israeli settlement of Ateret after a suspect was reported.
“While confronting the suspect, he began to stab the soldiers, who responded with fire and eliminated him,”
the statement added.
How is the Palestinian Authority responding to the killings?
As the army did not return his body, the Palestinian Authority said it had been informed by Israel of the death of 17-year-old Muhannad Tariq Mohammed al-Zaghir, who was killed by Israeli soldiers “in the city of Hebron,” without elaborating further.
The Palestinian Authority announced that Israel informed them of the death of 18-year-old Mohammed Raslan Mahmoud Asmar, who was shot by Israeli forces north of Ramallah.
In a statement, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement praised the attacks as “heroic operations… against the occupation soldiers”. The Israel-Palestine conflict has significantly increased uncertainty and instability in the broader Middle East region in recent years.
What similarities exist between these and previous November incidents?
In a similar incident in November, Israeli forces killed two Palestinian teenagers during an overnight raid in Kfar Aqab, a town near Ramallah in the West Bank. The victims were 16-year-old Sami Ibrahim Mashaikha and 18-year-old Amr Khaled Al-Marboua, who were shot and later succumbed to their wounds amid the region’s growing violence.
The Israeli military released a brief video allegedly showing the teenagers hurling petrol bombs in response to reports of Israeli civilians being attacked with rocks and property being set on fire, but independent verification was not feasible.
