ISRAEL: According to Palestinian sources, two Palestinian teenagers were killed by Israeli troops in clashes on Saturday in the occupied West Bank. According to Israeli authorities, an Israeli soldier was also fatally shot in Jerusalem by a Palestinian gunman.
The shooter opened fire on Israeli security personnel at a checkpoint at the entrance to the Palestinian refugee camp of Shuafat on the outskirts of Jerusalem, close to the West Bank.
While authorities were looking for the attacker, a security guard was seriously injured, according to police, and a female soldier was slain, according to the Israeli military.
In a previous report, the Israeli military said that security officers in the West Bank city of Jenin engaged Palestinian attackers with gunfire and explosives while attempting to apprehend a member of the Islamic Jihad militant group.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, two Palestinians aged 16 and 18 were killed, and 11 others were injured. Mahmoud Abbas, the president of Palestine, denounced the killings.
As Israel prepares for elections on November 1, the most recent of nearly daily incursions into Jenin, a militant bastion, highlighted the explosive security situation in the West Bank.
Israel began Operation Breakwater against militants on March 31 in response to a series of lethal Palestinian attacks on Israeli streets.
Around 80 Palestinians, including militants and civilians, have been slain in the West Bank’s recent spike in violence, where the Palestinians have little autonomy.
Tor Wennesland, the U.N. representative for the Middle East, expressed shock about the violence and urged restraint.
The West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem Palestinian state-building negotiations, which the United States was mediating, broke down in 2014 and have not recovered.
Security authorities from Israel have urged Abbas’ Palestinian Authority to take more significant steps to reduce violence.
The PA, which is losing support in the West Bank, claims that Israel’s incursions have deliberately weakened its ability to enforce its rule.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Abbas, claimed in a statement that the Israeli government was “delusional” to believe that such steps would advance peace and stability.
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