Israeli settlers kill Palestinian teen
Israeli settlers have shot dead a Palestinian teenager during an anti-settlement protest near the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
Residents of Yitzhar settlement clashed on Thursday with some 70 Palestinian villagers, who were protesting the construction of illegal settlements on their lands, Ma’an news agency reported.
The Israeli settlers opened fire on the protesters killing 19-year-old Udai Maher Qadous who was hit in the chest, according to Palestinian eyewitnesses.
The Palestinian victim was transferred to Rafidiyeh Hospital in Nablus, where he succumbed to internal bleeding triggered by several gunshots he had suffered to his chest, Palestinian medical officials said.
Israel has been persistently proceeding with the construction of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).
The United Nation has repeatedly condemned Israel for defying international calls to halt its settlement construction activities.
In October, Oscar Fernandez Taranco, assistant UN secretary general for political affairs, criticized Israel for jeopardizing efforts to resolve the impasse in talks with the Palestinian Authority — negotiations derailed by Israel’s refusal to halt its West Bank settlement expansions.
“We have a brief and crucial window to overcome the current impasse. The UN secretary general continues to believe that if the door to peace closes, it will be very hard to reopen,” Taranco told the UN Security Council.
Recently, the Human Rights Watch’s representative Carroll Bogert blamed Tel Aviv for its “systematic discrimination” against Palestinians “merely because of their race, ethnicity, and national origin” and for “depriving them of electricity, water, schools, and access to roads.”
“While Israeli settlements flourish, Palestinians under Israeli control live in a time warp — not just separate, not just unequal, but sometimes even pushed off their lands and out of their homes,” Bogert said.
