Palestinian teenager shot dead at close range by Israeli soldiers

Kamel Zakarneh, who told Reuters he had witnessed the shooting, also disputed the claim that something had been thrown. “Who said that he was throwing stones, it is not true,” he said. “They shot him with four bullets the second they saw him.”

The Palestinian Red Crescent said in a statement Saturday that Israeli security forces had “prevented its medical crews from reaching the injured youth while he was critically injured.”

The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment on the video or on the Red Crescent’s statement.

From Oct. 7, 2023 — the day Hamas launched its terror attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip — to this November, Israeli forces and settlers killed 1,030 Palestinians, including 223 children, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

While fighting in the Gaza Strip has subsided considerably since a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect 10 weeks ago, there has been a spike in violence in the West Bank as Israel’s government has continued to approve new Jewish settlements in the territory. On Monday the country’s Security Cabinet approved 19 more.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said last week that more Palestinians were attacked in the West Bank in October than in any month since it started keeping records. The West Bank is home to 2.7 million Palestinians who have limited self-rule under Israeli military occupation.

Most world powers deem the West Bank settlements, on land Israel captured in a 1967 war, illegal. Numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions have called on Israel to halt all settlement activity.

The Israeli government disputes that its settlements are unlawful and cites biblical and historical ties to the land.

After Mualla and another 22-year-old man was killed on Saturday, Hamas said in a statement that their deaths necessitated “an intensification of popular anger and resistance to confront this escalating aggression.”