Palestinian boy injured in clashes with police

A 10-year-old Palestinian boy was moderately injured Thursday when he was shot in the face with a foam pellet by Border Police troops in clashes in East Jerusalem.

A group of Palestinian youths were throwing rocks at Border Police forces in the Shuafat refugee camp as the men guarded infrastructure maintenance workers in the area. It was not immediately clear whether the wounded boy was among those throwing stones.

The officers responded with crowd-control munitions, including the foam pellet that hit the boy, who was not named in initial reports of the incident.

The boy was evacuated to the capital’s Hadassah Ein Karem hospital.

Shuafat is the only Palestinian refugee camp within Jerusalem’s municipal borders. Poverty, density and neglected infrastructure, as well as a political inclination toward the radical Hamas movement, have contributed to rising extremism among residents.

On Saturday, several Shuafat residents hurled rocks and other objects at firefighting teams attempting to extinguish fires that broke out at two synagogues in the neighboring Jewish neighborhood of Pisgat Zeev. No injuries were reported.