By Ali Sawafta
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – A 12-year-old Palestinian boy died on Monday after being shot by Israeli forces during a raid in the occupied West Bank in late September, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
Mahmoud Samoudi was shot in the abdomen during an Israeli operation in Jenin on Sept. 28 that killed four Palestinian gunmen and wounded some 40 Palestinians.
On Monday, men carried his body, draped with a Palestinian flag, along a funeral procession route lined with mourners.
The Israeli military said its forces exchanged fire with gunmen after riots developed during its operation in the area, and that the circumstances of the boy’s death were being examined.
News of Samoudi’s death came following a deadly weekend in the West Bank, during which health officials said four Palestinian teens were killed by Israeli forces in separate incidents.
More than 100 Palestinians from the West Bank have been killed this year, most since late March when Israel launched a military operation following a spate of fatal street attacks by Palestinians in its cities that killed 19 people and ahead of a Nov. 1 election.
The Israeli military said the near-daily raids are part of a “counter-terrorism operation” aimed to prevent Palestinian attacks.
The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank, has condemned the raids, which it has described as “crimes” against Palestinians who have been living under decades of Israeli military rule.
On Monday, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said it sent a letter to the United Nations secretary general calling on the organisation to provide special protection for Palestinian children. Since January, the letter said, Israel has “willfully” killed over 44 Palestinian children and minors by deliberately aiming at their upper bodies.
In a response to a request for comment, the Israeli military rejected the accusation that it intentionally targeted children and said its forces use live fire “only after all other options are exhausted, and in accordance with the operational procedures that are aligned with international law.”
(Reporting by Ali Sawafta; Additional reporting and writing by Henriette Chacar; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
