By Izzat Ramini and Agencies
Albawaba.com – Ramallah
Clashes between Palestinians and the Israeli forces continued on Thursday, resulting in the death of three Palestinians and injury of dozens, while Israeli bulldozers leveled farmlands in different areas of Palestine.
A Palestinian man died Thursday after being shot in the head by Israeli troops near the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He was identified as Ismail Abu al-Rous, 20, said AFP.
Earlier, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager during clashes in the village of Taqou’ near Bethlehem on Thursday, medical officials said.
Walid Mohammed Ahmed al-Badan, 19, died after he was shot in the chest, while three others were seriously injured by live ammunition.
He was the first Palestinian to be shot and killed in clashes since Tuesday.
Sources told Albawaba.com that one of the injured was Fathi Aziz Badan.
Palestinian sources said that the area was calm before that the incident started when the Israeli soldiers opened fire at school students as they were leaving school.
They added that Jewish settlers in Taqou’ hurled stones at passing cars, and blocked traffic going through the Za’atara junction, which links the north and south West Bank.
Eyewitnesses said that the settlers burned tires and damaged a number of cars belonging to Arabs, who were coming to Ramallah from Nablus.
Two Palestinians were hurt in the settlers’ assaults: 43-year-old Mahmoud Jaber Mohammad, a taxi driver, and Ramzi Zayara from Qira. Both were admitted to Rafidia Hospital.
The witnesses said that the Israeli soldiers in the scene did nothing to stop the hostile acts.
Taxi drivers say that the Za’atara junction has become a dangerous place, especially at night, when settlers set ambushes and attack passers by.
Also close to Bethlehem, a Palestinian child was killed Thursday near the village of Houssan in a hit-and-run incident that residents said was a deliberate act by a Jewish settler.
Eyewitnesses said that Shady Ahmad Zo’ul, 14, was on the sidewalk when a settler followed him in his GMC car, hit and dragged him for a distance before the attacker fled the scene.
Shady died on his way to Hadassah Hospital inside the Green Line.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian news agency (WAFA) said that the Israeli forces bulldozed tens of dunums of citrus orchards owned by the Palestinians near the Beit Hanoun (Erez) crossing point in Gaza.
Eyewitnesses told the agency that more than 40 dunums were leveled when the Israeli bulldozers opened a stripe along the Green Line to the north of Beit Hanoun.
The Israeli authorities had also cleared large areas of planted lands in Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahia.
According to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, the Israeli authorities have not stopped demolishing Palestinian orchards, forests, houses and civilian installations “to create new realities on the ground.”
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