Palestinians report 2 dead in West Bank riots
22-year-old Tamer Smour and 19-year-old Udai Nafez said killed in clashes with IDF forces
TULKAREM — Palestinian sources reported Friday that two West Bank youths died earlier in the day in clashes with Israeli security forces during riots in the northern and central West Bank.
Palestinian security sources said Tamer Smour, 22, was hit by a live bullet in the chest in the city of Tulkarem, in the northern West Bank.
A spokeswoman for the Israeli army told AFP that some “1,200 rioters” had been hurling “rocks and Molotov cocktails at troops and at an industrial center in the vicinity, endangering workers and passers-by.”
“The forces used riot dispersal means and once these means were exhausted, they fired at the main instigators,” she said.
In a separate clash in Saffa, a village west of Ramallah, 19-year-old Udai Nafez was killed in a clash with Israeli forces, Palestinian medical sources said.
Ahmad Bitawi, director of the Ramallah governmental hospital, told AFP that Nafez died in his hospital after being shot in the chest.
The Israeli army had no immediate comment on the Saffa incident.
A spokesman for the Red Crescent told AFP that 73 Palestinians were wounded by live ammunition and rubber bullets fired by Israeli forces during Friday clashes throughout the West Bank, including in the cities of Bethlehem and Hebron and near Ramallah.
In East Jerusalem, Israeli police arrested two Palestinians during a clash outside the Old City after Friday prayers.
The clashes came as violence in Gaza escalated when a short-lived humanitarian truce collapsed in just a few hours after two Israeli soldiers were killed and a third was apparently kidnapped by gunmen near Rafah. President Barack Obama led an international chorus of demands for Hamas to release the soldier, Hadar Goldin, unconditionally.
Figures published by the UN humanitarian agency (OCHA) last weekend showed that until Friday, 11 Palestinians had been killed and around 600 injured in clashes since July 23.
Ten of them, including a teenager, were shot dead by Israeli troops, while another was killed by an Israel settler, it said.
