A 14-year-old Palestinian has been killed in the occupied West Bank

A 14-year-old Palestinian has been killed in the occupied West Bank by the Israeli army in an arrest operation over the alleged abduction of three settlers.

The killing occurred when the Palestinian youths started to throw stones at Israeli forces as the troops stormed the town of Dura, near the southern city of Al-Khalil (Hebron).

The teen was shot in the chest after Israeli troops began to spray bullets on Palestinian youths.

The Dura neighborhood has been the focus of a massive Israeli army’s search operation since last week, when three Israeli settlers went missing in the occupied West Bank as alleged by the Tel Aviv regime.

Palestinian medics and security forces identified the boy as Mohammed Dudin, who was taken to the Alia hospital in Al-Khalil, where he was pronounced dead.

According to witnesses, the Israeli troops had come to carry out arrests when the violence erupted.

Three more Palestinians are also reported to have been seriously wounded by the Israeli fire in the Qalandiya refugee camp, near Ramallah.

Tel Aviv accuses Hamas, the Palestinian resistance movement, of kidnapping the three settlers in the occupied West Bank. However, Hamas vehemently rejects the accusation, saying Tel Aviv seeks to sabotage the recent reconciliation accord reached between the movement and Fatah, which led to the formation of the Palestinian national unity government earlier this month.

Some 300 Palestinians, including 11 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), have been abducted since the Tel Aviv regime launched its massive arrest campaign on June 12, 2014, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS).