Israeli soldiers kill Palestinian man and teenager in West Bank

Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian teenager and a Palestinian bystander in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, according to an Israeli security official. The teenager was reportedly driving a car towards the soldiers when they opened fire.

The military said an "uninvolved person" was hit in addition to the driver of the car, who had "accelerated" towards soldiers at a checkpoint in the West Bank city of Hebron on Saturday evening.

Palestinian news agency Wafa identified the bystander as 55-year-old Ziad Naim Abu Dawood, a municipal street cleaner who was working at the time. The agency reported that soldiers left him to bleed before eventually handing his body over to the Red Cross.

The Palestinian health ministry named the teenage driver as 17-year-old Ahmed Khalil al-Rajabi.

The Israeli military reported no injuries among its soldiers.

A general strike was held across Hebron on Sunday in protest at the killings in the Bab al-Zawiya area, with shops and businesses shuttered.

Hebron’s deputy mayor, Asma al-Sharbati, said the municipality and its employees’ union had also declared an internal strike, noting that Abu Dawood was a municipal worker killed on duty and had no connection to any alleged car-ramming incident.

Violence in the West Bank has escalated sharply over the past year. Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians have surged, while the military has imposed tighter movement restrictions and conducted sweeping raids in several cities.

Since January, 51 Palestinian minors have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission reported that November alone saw around 2,144 attacks by Israeli forces and settlers, including 1,523 carried out by soldiers against Palestinian civilians and their property, and 621 by settlers.