RAMALLAH: An eight-year-old boy and a teenager were killed by the Zionist army on Wednesday in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, according to the Palestinian health ministry. The ministry said in a statement that “Adam Al-Ghul, eight years old, and Bassem Abu el-Wafa, 15 years old, were killed by bullets from the occupier”.

CCTV footage circulating online and on television news shows a boy being struck by a bullet and falling in the street, sending other children fleeing. Other images show a teenager also being hit by a bullet and falling, then appearing to call for help as more shots hit the ground around him and other people run for cover. The teenager can be seen struggling on the ground in apparent agony for at least half a minute.

An official with the Palestinian Red Crescent told AFP that the boy and the teen had been on a side street of central Jenin’s main thoroughfare, an area theoretically off limits to the Zionist military as it is under the sole control of the Palestinian Authority. Asked about the deaths by AFP, the army said it was “verifying” the information.

The army added that it had carried out an overnight raid in the Jenin refugee camp in which it “killed two high-ranking terrorists”. The Red Crescent reported having provided aid to six Palestinians wounded by gunfire during the raid. Since the Oct 7 attack on the Zionist entity and its ensuing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, violence in the West Bank has flared, with nearly 240 Palestinians killed by either soldiers or Zionist settlers, according to the health ministry.

Also on Wednesday, the Zionist army arrested a 12-year-old boy in the Jalazone refugee camp in the West Bank city of Ramallah, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said. The boy would become the youngest Palestinian prisoner in Zionist detention, with nearly 200 women and males aged 18 or under released in recent days under an agreement pausing fighting between the Zionist entity and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Mahmud Ghawanmeh, father of Karim Ghawanmeh, told AFP that via his brother, Zionist soldiers had summoned him to bring in his son. “I thought I would be with him for his interrogation, but the officer told me to go back home,” he added, without specifying the accusations against his son. The Zionist army declined to comment immediately on the matter.

Meanwhile, five premature babies have been found dead at a hospital in Gaza City during a pause in fighting between the Zionist entity and Hamas, the health ministry said Wednesday. Before a temporary truce in the seven-week war came into force on Friday, several hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip had been targeted by Zionist raids, with some evacuated on the orders of the Zionist army.

Gaza health ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra told AFP Zionist soldiers had blocked access to the intensive care unit at Al-Nasr pediatric facility, and doctors were finally “able to get into the ward on Tuesday night”. There, Qudra said, “the occupation (Zionist) forces left five premature babies” who were found “partly decomposed”. “The soldiers forbade the families from going near” the newborns before Tuesday, he said.

The Zionist army said it was unable to immediately comment on the matter when contacted by AFP. Earlier this month, the world followed the fate of 39 premature babies trapped in another major Gaza City hospital, Al-Shifa, which was besieged and ultimately raided by Zionist forces. Eight of the infants died due to a lack of electricity to run their incubators, the health ministry said. Another 31 were evacuated, most of whom went on to Egypt for treatment. – AFP