Qais Omar Darwesh and Lina Altawell
16 July 2026•Update: 16 July 2026
A Palestinian teenager was injured Thursday by Israeli army gunfire during a raid on the town of Bani Naim, east of Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank, while the army arrested 32 Palestinians, according to medical sources and eyewitnesses.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement that its teams transferred a 16-year-old boy to a hospital after he was shot in the chest with live ammunition during the raid.
Israeli forces stormed Bani Naim with several military vehicles and opened heavy fire with live ammunition, wounding the teenager, eyewitnesses told Anadolu.
In a separate development, the Israeli army arrested 32 Palestinians during widespread raids across West Bank cities and towns Thursday, according to the Prisoners’ Media Office.
The nongovernmental group said the arrests targeted several former prisoners and young men, and were accompanied by home raids, searches, vandalism of perosnal property and field interrogations of residents.
The arrests were concentrated in Hebron province, where 13 Palestinians were detained in the town of Beit Ummar, north of the city.
The remaining arrests took place in Bethlehem in the south, Qalqilya, Tubas and Tulkarem in the north, and occupied Jerusalem, the group said.
The West Bank has seen escalating Israeli army and occupier attacks since October 2023. According to official Palestinian figures, the attacks have killed 1,179 Palestinians and injured nearly 13,000 others, while around 24,000 Palestinians have been arrested.
In a separate attack, Israeli occupiers set fire to a Palestinian vehicle and an agricultural tractor, completely destroying both, during an attack on the town of Ramin, east of Tulkarem in the northern occupied West Bank, eyewitnesses said.
They said the occupiers also tried to burn other vehicles and homes, but residents confronted them and, with the help of civil defense teams, extinguished the fires and prevented them from spreading.
Around 750,000 occupiers live in 141 illegal settlements and 224 settlement outposts across the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, and carry out attacks aimed at forcibly displacing Palestinians.
During the first half of the year, occupiers committed 3,488 attacks against Palestinians and their property, according to a July 6 report by the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission.
The attacks included raids on Palestinian villages, the burning of homes, shootings, land seizures and the establishment of settlement outposts, resulting in the deaths of 17 Palestinians.
Palestinians warn that Israel is using such attacks to pave the way for the formal annexation of the West Bank, which would undermine the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state as outlined in relevant UN resolutions.
In 1948, Israel was established on lands occupied by armed Zionist groups that committed massacres and displaced at least 750,000 Palestinians. Israel later occupied the rest of the Palestinian territories and continues to refuse to withdraw from them.
