BSS
  16 Dec 2025, 11:05

Palestinians say Israeli forces killed teenager in West Bank

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories, Dec 16, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - The Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry said on Monday that Israeli forces killed a teenage boy during a raid in the occupied West Bank.

"Ammar Yaser Mohammad Taamara (16) was killed by a bullet to the chest fired by the occupation (Israeli) forces during their raid on the town of Tuqu, southeast of Bethlehem," the health ministry said in a statement.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli military said in a statement that there had been a "confrontation" in the Tuqu area in which rocks were thrown at its soldiers.

"The soldiers used riot dispersal means and later on fired toward a main inciter, and a hit was identified."

It said "the incident is under review".

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, where violence has soared since Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.

It has not ceased despite the fragile truce between Israel and Hamas that came into effect in October.

Israeli troops or settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians, many of them Hamas men, but also scores of civilians, in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian health ministry figures.

At least 44 Israelis, including both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations, according to official Israeli figures.