20-year-old Palestinian killed by Israeli soldiers in West Bank

The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the young man as Ayed Azzam Saleem, 20, adding he died shortly after being critically injured by Israeli gunfire in the abdomen and chest.

Witnesses said Israeli troops directly fired at young Palestinians who were demonstrating at the entrance to the town of Azzun in protest at the daily Israeli atrocities across the occupied territories.

Saleem, was first reported critically injured and rushed to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead of his injuries.

According to the Palestinian Information Center, the new fatality increased the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces’ live fire in the occupied West Bank and the 1948-occupied Palestinian territories since the beginning of 2023 to 98.

The new development came amid heightened tensions across the occupied Palestinian territories after Israeli forces violently stormed the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the holy occupied city of al-Quds and attacked Palestinian worshipers there.

The Israeli regime’s forces attacked the Palestinians at the compound, which is Islam’s third-holiest site, beating the Palestinian worshipers before arresting and forcing out hundreds of them. Dozens of Palestinians were wounded as a result of the violence.

The highly provocative raid prompted retaliatory rocket attacks against the occupied territories from the direction of the Gaza Strip where Hamas and its fellow resistance movement, the Islamic Jihad, are headquartered, as well as from Lebanon.