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RAMALLAH: Israeli forces killed a 17-year-old Palestinian in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, according to Palestinian officials.
Mohammed Murad Mahmud Rayan was “killed by the (Israeli) occupation forces on Thursday morning in Beit Duqqu”, a village just north of Jerusalem, the Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry said in a statement.
The Israeli army said a “violent disturbance of the peace” broke out during “operational activity” in the Beit Duqqu area, and “a terrorist hurled stones at the soldiers, posing a threat to them”. “Soldiers responded with fire towards the terrorist” who was “neutralised”, the army added.
According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, the Israeli army was carrying out “a wide-scale search operation targeting several homes”.
Settlers block students path to school with barbed wire
At least 1,060 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers in the West Bank since the Gaza conflict began.
At least 46 Israelis, both civilians and members of the security forces, have been killed in the same area in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations, official Israeli figures show.
School path blocked
Dozens of Palestinian children have been unable to go to school in the Israeli-occupied West Bank this week because of barbed wire erected by Jewish settlers across the path they normally use.
Dozens of children tried on Monday to get to school in the small village of Umm al-Khair near the city of Hebron. They found their way blocked by barbed wire which villagers said had been placed there by Israelis from the nearby Carmel settlement.
Khalil Hathaleen, head of the Umm al-Khair village council, said the barbed wire prevented children from the outskirts of the village taking their usual safe path through a valley to the school in the village centre.
Otherwise, he said, the children would have to walk along a road which he described as dangerous, because it passes closer to the settlement.
“We insist on using the main path that our children have always taken,” he said, accusing Jewish settlers of trying to take over the land so that they can expand their settlement.
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem said the barbed wire was part of a coordinated campaign by settlers and the Israeli military to intimidate Palestinians and drive them from their land in the West Bank, which it said amounted to “ethnic cleansing”.
A video which a Palestinian activist said he had filmed on April 13, shows boys and girls sitting and standing by the newly erected barbed wire fence.
Residents said Israeli soldiers had later fired teargas, causing several children to experience breathing difficulties. Some residents described the children’s symptoms as if they were suffocating. In the video, smoke can be seen rising. Classes had been suspended at the start of the Iran war.
Restrictions on Palestinians
The Yesha Council, a body that represents West Bank settlers, said that “a barrier was put in place to protect the residents of Carmel, in coordination with Israeli security authorities” after repeated attempted incursions into Carmel. It said there were other routes that could be used.
Local Palestinians said they have filed a complaint through an Israeli-Palestinian office about the barbed wire fence, which stands near Israeli flags, but that it had not been removed.
Palestinians have faced mounting restrictions on their movement in the West Bank since the October 7, 2023 raid on southern Israel. The Israeli military has erected dozens of new checkpoints across the West Bank and established permanent and temporary roadblocks.
Around 700,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank, among some 2.7 million Palestinians.
Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2026
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