IOF Martyr West Bank Teen Amid Surge in Raids, Land Seizures

By Staff, Agencies

The General Authority for Civil Affairs in the West Bank announced on Thursday that 15-year-old Palestinian boy Murad Fawzi Abu Saifin was martyred after being shot by "Israeli" occupation forces [IOF] in the town of al-Yamoun, west of Jenin, amid a new wave of "Israeli" raids and settler encroachments across the occupied territory.

According to local sources cited by Palestinian news agency WAFA, the IOF carried out a nighttime raid in al-Yamoun, arriving with several military vehicles, opening fire at a Palestinian, wounding him, and leaving him bleeding on the ground.

The IOF also prevented an ambulance from reaching him before detaining him, with no information provided about the severity of his injuries. Snipers were also reportedly deployed on the rooftop of one of the town’s buildings during the raid.

Separately, an elderly Palestinian woman from the town of al-Mazra’a al-Gharbiya near Ramallah lost her life after IOF raided her family home, assaulted its residents, and detained her grandson.

The IOF continued their detention campaign across the West Bank throughout Thursday. Two Palestinians were detained in Beit Lahm, while another was arrested from the Old Askar refugee camp east of Nablus. Security sources told WAFA that forces stormed the camp, raided a home, searched it, and tampered with its contents.

Raids also took place in the town of Halhul, north of al-Khalil, and in the village of al-Mughayir northeast of Ramallah, where IOF brought a bulldozer into the area, raising fears of demolition operations.

In the northern Jordan Valley, settlers began on Thursday fencing off Palestinian agricultural land in preparation for seizing it. Mahdi Daraghmeh, head of the al-Malih village council, said the targeted area covers around 2,000 dunams.

For weeks, settlers have been fencing large areas of Palestinian-owned land across the Jordan Valley, de facto annexing and occupying Palestinian land.

In the al-Farsiya area alone, more than 500 dunams have already been fenced, while in Umm al-Jamal settlers attempted to enclose about 1,200 dunams before Palestinian authorities intervened.