UPDATES WITH DEATH TOLL, CHANGES HEAD, DECK AND LEDE
By Aysar Alais
RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA) – At least one Palestinian was killed and another injured Saturday by Israeli army fire in Tulkarm in northern West Bank, according to local sources.
"Israeli occupation forces killed a young man, Isalm Odah, after besieging and shelling a residential building in Tulkarm, West Bank," the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Eyewitnesses told Anadolu that Israeli forces sent military reinforcements, including bulldozers, to Tulkarm and besieged a building in the eastern al-Salam neighborhood.
Witnesses reported that the army fired at least one Energashell at an apartment in the building. One of the residents was injured, but the fate of the others remains unclear.
Armed clashes broke out inside the apartment before the army left with the deceased's body, they said.
A military bulldozer reportedly began demolishing parts of the building during the operation.
In the ongoing clashes, a Palestinian was earlier injured by live ammunition in the legs, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which confirmed that its teams in Tulkarm “treated a gunshot wound to the legs sustained during confrontations with the Israeli occupation forces in Harat Al-Salam.”
According to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, Israeli soldiers allegedly summoned the parents of one of the young men inside the besieged apartment, reportedly using them as human shields to pressure their son to surrender.
In a related development, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, issued a statement claiming that their fighters had “targeted occupation forces in the al-Salam neighborhood and at the entrance to Tulkarm refugee camp with heavy gunfire.”
The Israeli army has carried out frequent raids in the West Bank over recent years, with operations intensifying since the escalation of conflict in Gaza last October. Palestinians in the West Bank have also faced violent attacks from Israeli settlers.
Since the start of the Gaza conflict, at least 760 Palestinians have been killed and around 6,300 injured by Israeli army fire in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The current escalation follows a July opinion by the International Court of Justice, which declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories “illegal” and called for the evacuation of all Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
*Writing by Ikram Kouachi and Rania Abu Shamala