Israeli soldiers shoot and kill two Palestinian boys in Jerusalem

Israeli forces killed two Palestinian boys on the outskirts of Jerusalem, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said on  Friday.

"The young man Amr Khaled Ahmed Al-Marbou, 18, and the boy Sami Ibrahim Sami Mashayekh, 16, were martyred by occupation forces gunfire in the town of Kufr Aqab," the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said it transported two people from Kufr Aqab to a hospital during the night, both with gunshot wounds.

Several hundred people took part in the funeral processions for Marbou and Mashayekh on Friday.

Oday al-Shurfa, a friend of Marbou, told AFP he witnessed the incident.

"He was just standing there, not holding or throwing stones," he said.

Shurfa said Marbou was hit "in the chest, in the heart. He collapsed and was martyred on the spot," he said.

A relative of Marbou, who declined to give her name, told AFP: "He was with four others; one of them was also killed, another is in critical condition," and another suffered a serious hand injury.

"What kind of brutality is this?" she said.