2 Palestinian teens killed by Israeli army fire near Jerusalem

JERUSALEM / ISTANBUL

Two Palestinian teens were shot and killed by Israeli forces in the town of al-Judeira, northwest of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Friday.

The ministry identified the victims as Mohammad Abdullah Taim and Mohammad Rashad Fadl Qassem, both 16, saying Israeli troops “fired a heavy barrage of live bullets at them in the upper neighborhood of al-Judeira before seizing their bodies,” according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.

The Israeli army said in a statement that “on Thursday, during an ambush conducted by Unit 636 in the al-Judeira area, two individuals were observed igniting and throwing Molotov cocktails toward a main road.”

“The Israeli force neutralized the two individuals, and there were no injuries among our troops,” the statement said.

Israel’s public broadcaster KAN reported that the army “killed both of them.”

The Jerusalem Governorate said in a separate statement that Israeli forces “targeted the two "with a heavy barrage of live fire in the upper neighborhood near the separation and expansion wall, close to residential homes.”

Jerusalem is surrounded by a concrete and barbed-wire barrier built mostly inside the West Bank, standing more than 8 meters (26 feet) high and stretching about 202 kilometers (125 miles), according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

While Israel says the barrier was built for security reasons, Palestinians and the UN describe it as part of a plan to annex occupied land.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion deeming the wall illegal because it was constructed inside the occupied Palestinian territory.