The Israeli military forces reported that they have killed a Palestinian teenager trying to infiltrate the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar on Saturday. Israel claimed that the 14-year old Palestinian was carrying a Molotov cocktail and knife.
The boy, Suhayeb Saleh, was from the village of Assira al-Kubliyeh, near Yitzhar. His parents identified his body at a nearby hospital. An army spokesman said it did not know how far the boy was from the soldiers or the settlement.
The Israeli troops in the area have been on high alert since last week's infiltration of Yitzhar by a Palestinian militant, an incident which sparked a settler attack on a nearby Palestinian village. More than 100 Yitzhar settlers went on the rampage through the same village after this attack.
Israeli security forces were at the scene during the rioting, in which the settlers threw rocks, broke windows and fired guns in the air, but they did not arrest anyone and did not fire any live or rubber bullets.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared after the incident last week that Israel's government will not allow settlers to carry out "pogroms against non-Jews in the State of Israel."
It's worth mentioning that Yitzhar settlement is a bastion of radical right-wing Israelis in the heart of the occupied territory, in an area which has seen growing clashes between settlers and Palestinians in recent weeks.
